


IV. Finale: Rubato e affettuoso

by Ghostcat



Series: Piano Sonata in G Major, "Pense-bête" [4]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Canon Bisexual Character, Classical Music, Elio Gon' Elio, Elio POV, Explicit Sexual Content, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, Intimacy, M/M, Oliver pov, POV First Person, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-07-03 14:36:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15820908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostcat/pseuds/Ghostcat
Summary: Later, I will see everything that came after we kissed at the piano bench in just such a way—as film scenes; all out-of-sequence, the edit upholding the theme. An endless loop.Six years after parting, Elio and Oliver reacquaint themselves with one another.





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place directly after events in _III. Rondo_.
> 
> Pense-bête is based off of sonata structure and part four is the "coda" section.

   Where to start? In 4/4 time? A fugue?

   Fugues feel final. But I like their seeming structural simplicity. How they can fool you into thinking they’re straightforward.

   In the last movement of his Piano Sonata No. 29 in B flat major, which is written as a fugue, Beethoven made sure to notate it _con alcune licenze_ as if to say: I’m not responsible for the rules I’m about to break. It’s dissonant, incredibly demanding, and in 3/4 time. And yet, it is structurally sound, despite all the rule breaking. No matter how much it wanders, it returns to the theme.

   Adhering to the theme is vital.

   There was a film I saw when I was ten years old that I never quite forgot. Mafalda had been shucking peas in front of the television set in preparation for next day’s _risi e bisi_ and she fell asleep with it on. As a rule, my parents didn’t enforce bedtimes, and I was a well-behaved boy; by 10:30 PM, I was usually in bed of my own accord. This time though, I stayed on the sofa in the dark; transfixed by the story: a married couple go to Venice and are haunted by apparitions of their recently deceased child—a little blood-red coat seen in flashes throughout the various bridges and alleyways of the city. At one point they stop to make love, but it’s out of time. Scenes of their lovemaking are interspersed with the post-coital. Images of them getting ready to go out—the man walking past the door and putting on a tie, her smile at him as she dresses, his saliva on her thigh, this smear of shine on her skin, her blonde head thrown back in ecstasy.

   The time-shifts weren’t jarring. It was as if having come together again, their love now existed in all times at once. Or rather, their renewed love had caused time to turn in on itself. They loved therefore they would always be loving. In an endless loop; touching, kissing. Always getting dressed, socks, pants, dresses. Always gazing at one another in tenderness. Always in each other’s arms, mouth to mouth and gasping.

   At ten years old, I knew what sex was. My parents talked to me about everything I had a mind to ask about—whether it was chess or the Ottoman Empire or Jewish mysticism or my penis. Nevertheless, looking at those lovers on our twelve-inch screen, I had only a dim childhood awareness of what was happening; playground-gleaned inaccuracies and memories from the time I wandered into my parent’s bedroom at night, drawn by noises that sounded like pain and looked like anything but.

   Sex was love and love only; bodies meeting to love.

   When I became an adolescent and began waking up to sticky sheets and memories of even stickier dreams—my hands couldn’t get enough of myself and my eyes couldn’t get enough of others—it was almost a relief to know that sex could be simpler than that. It took some of the weight away. I could desire but not love, I could feel but not live in it, I could ignore my father’s advice, even though his advice was always the wisest. Though that realization came much later.

   Later, I will see everything that came after we kissed at the piano bench in just such a way—as film scenes; all out-of-sequence, the edit upholding the theme. An endless loop.


	2. Chapter One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> with sincere apologies to Haruki Murakami.

   It takes ten minutes for him to clear my mind entirely of thought. After that it’s just tongues in mouths, hands on skin. The creak of the floorboards as we inch closer to my bedroom. The frail sigh of storm wind just past the windows. His moans.

   He’s so loud. Loud in a way that echoes hot off the walls and thuds under my palms.

   That was an hour ago. Or was it two?

   Our future selves take a shower. Dry one another, tender as lovers.

   Because we’re lovers.

   And that’s even further along.

   Later, when Oliver turns the music back on, naked and crouching on his toes, I make a camera of my hands, say _click_ right as he turns to smile at me over his shoulder. His hair is wet; my mouth waters.

   I like his first song selection.

   “It reminds me of working summers in Provincetown.”

   “Cape Cod?” I say, admiring the view. The long, exquisite planes of his body. The tenderness of his fingers and toes. 

   “Yeah, you ever been?” He lies down next to me, kisses my shoulder.

   I shake my head.

   “I’ll take you.”

   I love hearing this but there’s an ache to it as well. When will he take me? (Later.) And as what? Even though I already know what we are to one another, the disquiet lingers.

   “What did you do there?”

   “Lifeguard. Line cook at a clam house. Catering. Sometimes tended bar at parties. Summer weddings.”

   “That’s right. Your martinis.”

   “Those,” he says, idly circling my navel with the tips of his fingers. “Were the best paying gigs. The best tips.”

   The hair on his chest—“all that fur and all that hair, or do I dare?”—makes me laugh. It seems like forever ago. From listening to songs about wanting to actually wanting, to having and being had. What leaps.

   Oliver rubs my hand, his gaze fixed on the wall. “It was a good time. First time I got to be myself outside of other’s purview.”

   “What did you discover?”

   He laughs, it’s low and dirty, but just as quickly, it’s gone, his brows knitted in melancholy.

   “A lot of those guys are gone. Young men. I fucked around a lot and,” he breathes out slowly. “Not all of it was safe. But I’m okay. How is that?”

   Again and again, the unspoken question: why has Death not entered all our houses? What was the blood mark keeping it at bay? Because it had to be blood, it was always blood.

   Christian could count his partners with one hand, I’d need many more hands. And yet, I’m clean. He was dressed in a child’s navy blue suit before he was cremated; all his other clothes were too big.

   “We are living in plague times, _Dottore._ Perhaps it is our lot to follow the bodies, alert the masses.”

   He hums discontentedly, fingers pressed against his lips, as if he’s not sure he agrees but can provide no counterpoint. I’m not sure I agree either. But when senseless things are happening, we have to impose our narratives, bring order to the disorder.

   “The doctors were the first to die during the Great Plague of Athens. There was no one to care for the dying. Everyone was dying.”

   “They didn’t have the fetching plague masks to protect them.”

   His lips quirk and the tiny parenthetical laugh lines appear. _( ( (_.

   “I’ve loathed the sickening feeling of triumph after every negative test. As if I’ve been hiding an endless stash of aces in my sleeve and I keep using them and winding up on top.” He pauses. “I’ve been careful, I know I have. But… what does that even mean anymore?”

   I put my fingers in his hair and pull him to face me. His smile is not a smile at all.

   “I’ve been careful too. I still feel like I’ve been tempting fate. Playing with it.”

   Oliver frowns, then shakes his head, the tight press of his lips giving way to a long inhalation. “I’m happy you’re well.”

   “I’m happy you’re well,” I echo, trailing my fingers from their grip on his hair to that hinge of jaw, landing-soft on the curve of his hairy chin. He shuts his eyes and immediately opens them, and there’s a minute shift there. A touching, uncomplicated give to his expression. All I see is him looking at me, me looking at him; the endless exchange of our mutual regard.

   A new song begins and his smile flickers a little. The path of those eyes informs me that I’m the one he's mirroring. My hand rushes to the corner of my smile, trying to still it, keep it from jumping and giving everything away.

   “Don’t,” he says, shaking his head and moving my fingers. “Don’t ever hide that glorious transparency. Don’t you dare.”

   The wiggle of my mouth gives way to laughter. He rushes to kiss me and gets nothing but teeth. He pulls back, wincing as I murmur sorries into his neck. He captures my bottom lip and holds, softening his lips around it, the press blissfully warm. I pull away breathless.

   “It’s embarrassing,” I mumble, sounding desultory like a spoiled child, and Oliver’s eyes crinkle when he smiles at me, like I’m no disappointment at all.

   “It shouldn’t be. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see it again.”

   He places his thumb at the corner of my smile, then slides it back across my cheek, his other fingers joining in to cup my jaw.

   I am lightheaded and stupid. “What? My face?”

   “Everything.”

   Which really means _you_. Me. Us.

   We can do this, he and I. Make the conversational leap from plague masks full of lavender and vinegar to the plain air between us. It’s not enough to kiss him, his skin, his lips; I want to kiss the air all around him, because he breathes it, because he’s in it. Because he’s here. With me.

   I think about the Ashbery poem he gave me to read, the one about Orpheus and Eurydice and regret. How everyone imagines themselves as Orpheus: foolish, brave and lovesick. No one is Eurydice—brought back by a lover who won’t acknowledge them, only to be returned, once again, to the dark. We can both be Orpheus, Oliver. I don’t mind sharing the name or the walk back to the light.

   His body looks nearly the same as when I first touched him, save for an ugly mottled scar on his lower back, over his right buttock. A patch of pearly, whitish skin criss-crossed with scar-lines like a sloppy game of tic tac toe. I’d kissed and licked it, as if I could restore it it, and he’d laughed. It was nothing, he’d said. A mole a dermatologist hadn’t liked the look of, cut away just in case. An allergic reaction to the Bacitracin he was slathering on it as it healed. He hadn’t noticed it had gotten infected until he developed a fever he couldn’t shake.

   Is it illogical to think: I wished I’d been there, Oliver? I would have driven you crazy with my nagging and dragged you to the doctor’s, said look, _Look. Heal him. Because I can’t._

   That’s not me. I have never done that. For anyone. But for you, Oliver, I know I would. Exceptions upon exceptions. Piling up like piles of bodies lost to a plague, outnumbering the living. His shoulder bumps mine and he bumps it again and again until I look up. Oliver shakes his head at me, smiling with an easy affection that makes my chest ache. Oh Elio, so serious, so fatalistic. Lighten up. He’s kind even as he teases.

   But perhaps this feeling is really about something else. I want to ask him about tomorrow, next week, next month but I can’t. It’s just not the time. I sink into our quiet, pressing my lips to his skin with my eyes shut tight.

   ‘Lovers,’ David Bowie sings that word as if it’s the only one in the whole world that matters.

   “My favorite lyrics,” he says and I raise an eyebrow.

   He touches my cheek with a fingertip, stroking by my birthmark—his smile near-giddy and shy.

   “‘Cause we’re lovers and that is a fact. Yes, we’re lovers and that is that,’” he murmurs-sings, and I wish I could keep it, not just as a memory, but as a tangible object.

   I look past the pink shell of his ear to the windows, at the snow outside. Dimly, I hope for unrealistic things, like an avalanche trapping us here for a month. Not a real avalanche, but the kind you play as children, with a white blanket overhead and flashlights to lead the way in the dark. I imagine that play-pretend version; cold and quiet, the two of us subsisting on tea and duty-free Swiss chocolate and fucking. No flights to catch, nobody to answer to.

   “And that is that,” I repeat softly.

   “You’re surprised because it’s so simple?”

   I shift, meeting his gaze. “No, not at all. The economy of those words makes the lines complex. There’s no economy in the feeling; the feeling _feels_ infinite.”

   He laughs; a small _hmm_ noise, as pleased as it is contained. “It’s the certainty for me. There’s nothing to argue. He calls it a fact and it is a fact.”

   “Is there a difference for you? Is everyone you have sex with, your lover? Because that seems like a fact.” I look at each vesicle-sliver of his iris; the varying blues, pale, almost-gray mixed with darker hues—all the shades. Oliver colors.

   “No. Only you.” He comes closer to bury his nose at my neck.

   “Elio, Elio, Elio.” I put my hand on the back of his head, my mouth on his bearded jaw, then lower, to the sharper stubble near his pulse point.

   “Oliver.” His voice low at my ear.

   And then it’s gone, we’re back into the past. An hour prior, just one. Back in that hallway. After the Satie and the last first kiss.

   We run up the stairs and keep kissing. Oliver and I kiss and kiss, sweetness itself. His lips, coral-pink, too-ripe, just about to dry out and chap. On the cusp of something, just like this moment.

   He is every demand I’ve ever made and every answer I’ve ever waited for. I’m not sure I will be able to survive when this ends.

   So I don’t ask. Don’t think. Later. There will be time for questions later.

   We fuck because we want each other. We love, because we’re lovers.

   We steal time.

   The lovemaking would have gone on endlessly if it hadn’t been so late, if I hadn’t slept so poorly on the plane and the night prior besides, if I hadn’t been so comfortable tucked at his side. I was exhausted, he was caring. I was sated; happy to give way to the pull of sleep.

   We made love twice. But this was after the first time, before the second time. We’d showered but were still naked. Oliver had put on music. Blondie, Bowie, The Stone Roses, Echo & The Bunnymen. John Adams and Ravel. We didn’t need excuses to touch another, we were past that. So we touched. Idly. Stretched out on my mattress on the floor, blue blanket up to our shoulders.

   I tell him about the piece that I’ve been working on. About getting stuck and using Oblique Strategies. Or maybe that’s afterwards. He asks me about my parents. My plans in London. When I fill him in on the drama with my side project, the Chauchat Trio, he laughs as if all parties involved are children. He isn’t wrong. I may have wanted him to be jealous but also not. Because jealousy is better in novels. Real life tends to make it stupid.

   We talk around us, or rather, I do. I want to be safe in my not-knowing what happens after this. At least until I go. There will be time for that on the plane.

   I ask him about the past.

   “What were you doing when you were seven?” Which was another way of asking: what were you doing when I was born, Oliver? Who were you then?

   “My family was still living in Concord, before we moved to Newton so—”

   I kiss the spot by his mouth and mumble into his skin. “Conkid? As in… Conquered?”

   He laughs, closing his eyes. “That’s just my long-buried New England accent making itself known. Con-cord.” Oliver’s voice settles cool and low on the second vowel. It feels formal, officious, and entirely put-up.

   “I know Concord.”

   “You do?”

   “I do. I read up on the town. It’s ah, a piece by Charles Ives. It’s mostly about literature. Hawthorne et. al. I tried to learn it, wasn’t really for me. Well, not yet anyway. I didn’t know you lived there. You have a secret accent?”

   “Buddy, you don’t want to know. It took years to cultivate these plangent tones and get rid of the Masshole.”

   “Masshole?”

   “That is not a term I made up.”

   “Ah, so it’s scholarly?”

   Those eyes harden but it’s a transparent sham. He’s always delighted in my teasing.

   “I wish we were close to the library, I would drag you there now until we found a journal article about the origins of Masshole.”

   His tickling is merciless and between protecting myself by bringing my knees up, I kiss his shoulder, bite there, near that birthmark and the smattering of freckles that surround.

   “I believe you, I believe you,” I say, gasping. “Stop.”

   “Say uncle and I’ll stop.”

   “Why?”

   “Do it.” He nods once, his grin a hair shy of uncertain. “Say uncle.”

   “I don’t even know what that means.”

   Oliver pulls back and returns my kisses. “Just say it,” he murmurs.

   “ _Zio_.”

   “A smart ass is what you are,” he shakes his head and mouths my earlobe, biting down. “You never give up.”

   “So you were in Con-cord.” I pronounce the r the French way, like a purr caught in the throat, and get an affectionate squeeze for my cheek.

   “Yeah, we had an electric train set that ran on real electricity. I electrocuted myself constantly. I essentially self-administered shock treatment. As you can see, didn’t seem to help.”

   “Help with what?”

   “Well, that kind of treatment is still recommended for those of us with predilections.” His voice hardens and so do his lips, settling into a grim line.

   I butt him with my head. “Predilections?”

   He stares meaningful down past my torso. My cock sleeps, unaware of its part in the conversation.

   “Ah.” I hold the side of my head up with my fist. His grin is old and new, forever in two places. “You are no predilection to me. You are you.”

   “You really think so? So if I’d been a _female_ grad student with—” Oliver laughs, loose and silly, poking me in the stomach.

   “—Stop.”

   “—all my distance and carefully hidden longing—”

   “Longing? Wow.”

   “Longing,” he repeats firmly, almost stern. “Don’t pretend you weren’t aware.”

   I wasn’t. And I’m not. Arguing would be churlish though. I press my lips to his.

   “Don’t forget your _Laters!_ , she’d have those too.”

   He rolls his eyes. “Can’t forget that.”

   “I would want you just the same.”

   His look is a doubting one, that half-lidded slide of a gaze that’s all disbelief. “You still would have hounded me within an inch of my life if I’d been a woman?”

   “I resent the insinuation. I do not _hound_. And yes. Probably. Definitely.”

   It’s not difficult to conjure an image of this other version of him. Woman Oliver. Slimmer face, softer cheeks, slender neck, no Adam’s apple. All that hair replaced by soft, white down on her arms and back. She would also be tall, fingers long and thin, her wrists would retain that poetic jut of bone. The cold, assessing look that used to pin me. The hands running through her hair, perfect and sun-kissed. What would her nickname have been? Still a Muvi Star? Or something else? Something else.

   Oliver’s half-smile tells me he remains unconvinced. “Don’t hurt yourself thinking, Buddy.”

   I nod, shrugging. “Whatever. It would still be you. I don’t believe that anatomy is destiny. We are born ourselves and never lose that essence. The rest is what we are expected to be.”

   “Spoken like a true acolyte of Simone de Beauvoir,” he murmurs, lifting my chin with his finger.

   “But what would have prevented me from flirting with you? Shyness?”

   “As I recall, nothing did.” He strokes his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “Keep in mind that your flirtation methods included ignoring me, plonking on that piano, exiting rooms when I entered them, deliberately—”

   “Plonking!? Shut up,” I say, shoving him. “I didn’t.”

   “ _Yes_ , you did. Deliberately provoking me by being a peevish little shit. You’re lucky that as an academic, I’m trained to see subtext. Otherwise you would have been shit out of luck.”

   He tries to lean his forehead against mine but pulls away laughing when I reject his approach. I lick my lower lip.

   “Well, then, to satisfy your need for textual complexity, I’d be a woman as well.”

   Oliver snorts. “Naturally.”

   I raise my brows. “Yes. We musn’t lose the bisexual narrative that gives this tale that extra layer of self-discovery.”

   “‘Bisexual narrative.’”

   “Or do you prefer ‘Queer'? That term seems to be picking up steam in academia.”

   “No. I do not.” He shifts, crossing his arms.

   “Fine. I’d be a lovestruck teenage girl. Instead of Leopaldi, it would be Sappho. Sighing, ‘Midnight slips past, yet I lie waking, aching, alone.’ Which of course, you know in the original.”

   Like the eternal lover of poetry that he is, Oliver dutifully recites Sappho’s supposed lines in the Ancient Greek. The consonants hard and precise, but also vibrant, musical. He drags his teeth on his bottom lip, the way he does when he says the f in “fuck” and I ache for him.

   “Thank you.”

   He huff-laughs; follows it with a quick, droll smile. “You’d miss out on fucking that peach.”

   “What makes you say that? Because I wouldn’t have a penis to fuck it with? I would have ruined it just the same.”

   “Really?”

   “Sure. Fingering out the peach pit, leaving my fingers inside. Curving them just so. Imagining it was your cunt instead. Sun-warm. Juicy, dripping.”

   “Oh?” he says, shifting. His gaze cool and sharp.

   “Because I’d use my fingers, no matter what I was doing.”

   “Right.”

   “I’d feel the soft, wet inside—not too ripe, firm enough to press into. Make room. For my tongue as well as my fingers. Inside, the flesh is red, in shades, darker the closer you get to the core. Not,” I glance at his lips, “coral, like your folds.”

   We inhale at the same time, his eyes narrowing as if he’s about to slip into sleep but I know that’s not it. I know what it is.

   “The nectar dripping down my tongue, to my chin, juice all over my face, and,” I smile, imagining. “...breasts, hair. Knowing the things you’d say if you were there. I’d hear them and think about eating you out until your thighs shook. Slurping every bit of your juices until you were dry and I was sopping. Your legs. Trembling. You’d slide right from those tremors into a deep, deep sleep; boneless and still.”

   He’s hard again and I could easily be persuaded.

   “That’s not exactly what happened.”

   “But it could have.”

   “Would you have preferred that?”

   His face is impassive. I reach out and touch the long slope of his nose, then his bottom lip.

   “A thought experiment is only that. It can’t replace reality. I love this right now. This is who you are, Oliver. You are you and I am I. But don’t think anything could alter the feeling I have for you.”

   He bites down where my finger had just been, worrying his lip is what they call it. Biting, biting as his eyes dart about in a kind of parody of thought. He’s blushing, fierce and hot, and the red spreads all over his face like a bad sunburn. I stroke his cheekbone; the skin is warm under my fingers. My man-woman, woman-man. Everything at once.

   Minutes pass and when he speaks finally, it has a dry, hollow sound. “You say that with such certainty.”

   “Yes. Because we’re lovers. And that is that.”

   Oliver stares at me a moment, as if formulating his response. Then it begins. A smile that unfurls from the thought of a flower to the real thing in full-petalled bloom. Most joyous and most perfect.

   He should always be this happy. There should be no other face on him. It was designed for joy.

   I know what he’s thinking. He’s thinking: he understands me, as I understand him. Will that ever change? Could we ever grow so far apart in time that the things that happened to us in the interim would cause us to lose that gift? Is there a point at which you can’t go back? Six years and it hasn’t been reached. What about ten? Twenty? What about thirty? Is it possible the connections are finite because while time isn’t, feelings usually are?

   (Where have I heard this before?)

   We grow older, we love others, we live other lives. We change. Sometimes fundamentally. When is it too late?

   I imagine Oliver older. A paunch, sun spots everywhere, new scars, less hair, reading glasses. I picture him with a bad knee that keeps him home on rainy days, from running as much as he’d like or maybe not at all. I picture him with a bad heart, having to change his diet so he can live a little longer, so that we can have a few more years of life together. I’d sit in the garden with him, hold his hand in the twilight, slapping at insects and loving him.

   I place my hand over his chest, he places his hand over mine, and the onslaught of feeling threatens to take apart everything I’ve managed to put back together.

   Oliver puts his hand on my face and shushes me soothingly, “I’m here.”

   I embrace him tightly, tight enough to hurt, to break past the skin and bone, splinter and go through, which of course, I cannot. This is the fantasist speaking. But if I could, shift my molecules, that is, change my shape, become water so I could surround him, hold him in all my longing, I would.

   It’s not enough to be one being, if we can’t hold ourselves together and keep. If we have to break apart. I can’t bear the thought of him leaving again and as my arms squeeze his shoulders, his arms, I bargain with God that he won’t—that this time maybe, later, soon, now—he’ll stay.

   My eye goes from the birthmark on his shoulder, down his arm, past the bed to my small bedside lamp on the floor. He’s placed his Bulova watch next to mine. It’s classic, a little old-fashioned, but I love that. I love the pearly shine of it. The gold accents on the watch face, and how its warm brown leather band crosses over the black strap of my Swatch like a possessive arm or leg. Keeping it close. I push him back flat on his pillow so I can reach over his torso and grab it; see it up close. Read the ‘AMJ’ inscribed on the back of the watch face, the letters curling and grand.

   Oliver takes his watch from me and puts it on my wrist, buckling one past the hole that is worn-white with everyday use.

   “So the year I was born you were playing with electricity,” I whisper.

   “And wetting the bed.”

   “Really?” I shift closer, peering hard into his eyes, my body pressed against his side and slide one of my feet on top of his.

   “Didn’t stop until I was nine.” He nods, an empty smile on his face. “I had terrible nightmares.”

   “What of?”

   Oliver shakes his head, rubbing his cheek. “So many things. Big men, waiting in the dark. The kind that stole kids from their parents. My mother was convinced we were going to get kidnapped.” He trails his fingers along my arm, watches the motion with inattention, lost in the fold of memory. “I hated that house. My father was real piece of work. I’m glad you never had to meet him.”

   Why would I have met him? Or any of Oliver’s family? It’s not hope. Not hope, exactly. But it feels like it should be. I would walk with him through his house of ghosts, hold his hand, light the way. If he had needed me to, if he still does.

   “When I was seven, I was scared of the utter emptiness of everything. Hardly a trait you’d wish for in a future lover.”

   I listen to his heart, one arm tucked to my side, the other around his waist. I think of him as a seven-year old. Playing with a dog, teasing his brother, hiding from his parents. I try and picture his face and I can’t see it, but I can imagine the trees and the gray skies of his New England midwinter. I can feel the cold of his cheeks.

   “Was your hair very blonde?”

   “Yes, nearly white. Silver Jews, that’s what they called us at synagogue.”

   “That makes you sound like currency.”

   He laughs and in laughter, we get even closer. Tight as sardines.

   “I wish…”

   “What?”

   He shakes his head, looks away, smiling. “Nothing.”

   “Go ahead. I’m a genie, I grant wishes.” I break away, sitting up, placing my fingers on his hip and ‘playing’ a fanfare on his body. “Continue.”

   “I wish you were wearing more clothes.”

   “What?”

   “Yeah.” He glances down at his feet bashfully and elbows me. “I wish you were fully dressed.”

   “Uh… Do you have a problem with this?” I gesture to my body. It’s not bad as far as bodies go.

   “Don’t be silly. Of course I have no problem with it. It’s just...” He pauses, bites his lip. “Part of the pleasure of sex in the winter is peeling off those layers. You were wearing shorts and then my boxers and that was it. I suppose I wanted more to remove.”

   “Did you think it was too easy? That _I_ was too easy?”

   Oliver scratches the back of his head, then twiddles his thumbs. “A little.”

   “Oh, come on! It was too warm in here for a shirt.” I slap my forehead, remembering. “Oh _putain_! Be right back.”

   I spring up, jumping into Oliver’s blue duck boxers again, the closest item of clothing at hand, and sprint downstairs. The thermostat needs to be adjusted back to normal so as not to harm my precious piano with too much heat. I make sure to pass the Wissner before going back up, kissing it through the resultant echoing hum of a careful lid-close.

   Back in my bedroom, Oliver sprawls on the bed, a twist of sheet over his thighs. I go to my bureau, yank the drawers open, and start throwing clothes at him. Underwear, sweatpants, t-shirts, long-sleeved and short-sleeved, socks, hat.

   “Go ahead, put them on.”

   As always, he catches on quickly and his dressing is sexier than the opposite. It’s like a gift getting taken away all while knowing I will easily have it back. Pants, two t-shirts, one long-sleeved, one short-sleeved—all a little snug, in the seat of his pants, his upper arms—athletic socks and finally, a luridly purple knit hat.

   When I slip on a t-shirt, he stops me, stepping close to remove it and I still under his touch and let him. He pulls me towards my closet, where he removes a plaid shirt and hands it to me.

   “Put that on.” He tilts his head to the side, thinking. “With a sweater on top. Something soft.”

   “Something soft,” I repeat, knowing which one right away.

   I select a dark gray sweater and some corduroy pants, then socks. He watches me button each button of my shirt, and rubs his nose.

   “Should we do coats as well?”

   Oliver shrugs. “Why not?”

   “Wait here.”

   I go downstairs, grab a couple of ski parkas from the coat closet, luridly bright and still ticketed. I run back upstairs with them in my hands and he laughs at the choice but wordlessly puts his on when I do mine.

   “So what now?” I say. “We start again?”

   He lets me go and shoves me away, gently, with a cheek-cracking grin. “You talk. And we’ll see.”

   “Do you want to go outside? Build a snowman?”

   “Yes,” Oliver says, but grabs my arm as I try to go downstairs, reeling me back. “But, I also want to stay.”

   He nods, I nod.

   “Stay where? Here?” I ask.

   “Yes.”

   “With me?”

   “With you.” Our intonation matches exactly.

   I pull him to me, then push him back; a yo-yo gone sideways. He goes puppet-lax and allows me to move him, away from me and back. I find myself singing; to his feet, hands, eyes, nose, hair; the very whole of him. An old Gershwin song about being kept, staying, perhaps forever, and at last, having. It’s not performance, it’s instinctual. It says everything I want to say.

   He bends his knees, touches mine with his, and puts his forehead to mine. “Elio,” he says, syrupy-sweet and teasing. “I’ve never heard you sing. You have a beautiful voice.”

   “As do you.”

   “I do?” He spins around me.

   “Yes, I remember.”

   We stop, remembering. Before he can kiss me again, I tell him about writing, my directives, and the trip to Rome. I grab a Sharpie to draw Stendahl’s diagram on his arm, to explain. “Do you mind?” He shakes his head no.

   I ask him another, more important question and he doesn’t answer.

   Oliver is staring at my hair instead of the picture on his arm.

   “You need a hat too.”

   I grab a hat from my carry-on, put it on as Oliver laughs, hands at his hips.

   “Really? A fucking beret? Where’s your baguette?” He says the latter with a familiar, hard consonant hit of his t’s. “And your marinière and red kerchief? Can I draw a little curly mustache on you?”

   “Fuck off.”

   “Oooh.” Oliver pokes my stomach. “Frenchie wants to fight.”

   He bends his knees until we’re eye-to-eye and walks me back to the wall, sliding my arm up above our heads, fingers entwined. Then my other arm, until he’s got both my arms up, held by one of his hands and I push forward with my hips. He shoves them back hard.

   “Be. Good. Stay.”

   Oliver kisses me softly, around the edges of my mouth and when I try to push back, he shifts to my neck, ear, shoulder. Biting the soft padding of the jacket.

   “I’m not a dog.”

   “No.” He grins, tilting his head, all academic interest. “What’s the French onomatopoeia for a dog’s bark again? _Bow wow_ in English and _guau guau_ in Spanish—”

   “ _Roux roux_. R-o-u-x.”

   “Right. _Roux roux_.” His smile grows. “I want to kiss you in every one of these bedrooms.”

   “So do.”

   He leads me back out into the hallway by my hand, pulling me, and I resist, purely out of theatre. As we walk, he slows, looking back and nodding. I return his nod. The purple knit hat on top of his head is rising up like an eraser at the end of a pencil, and that, along with the ski parka is almost too much. It IS too much. We are fools.

   I step into the room at the end of the hall, he follows. That bedroom is small, big enough for a twin bed and a desk. I spread my arms, say, “Here’s the first bedroom,” and Oliver tries to pick me up. I fight a little, but not really; our parkas make zippery noises against each other. His lips meet mine hard, then softer. He’s sweating. I remove his hat with a flick of a finger.

   “Thank you. It couldn’t last.”

   The next bedroom is painted mint-green, and instead of kissing me, he looks around slowly. “Beautiful color. Did you pick it?”

   “Yes.”

   Oliver sidles up, his body pressed against mine. There’s a minute where we move our faces, trying to align and then he kisses me, his hand cupping the back of my head. His mouth is open and mine is almost-closed, but the awkwardness isn’t that at all. We shift and adjust, slot together and kiss. Kiss again. Because why stop?

   This goes on for a while, until he unzips my ski parka slowly and it drops to the ground.

   I unzip his. It also falls.

   Another bedroom, smaller than the green one. Painted the same cool gray-blue as mine. He leads me to the bed, sits me down, and removes my socks, but not my hat. “It’s kinda growing on me.”

   “ _Bien sûr._ ”

   He gifts me with a lopsided grin. “How does one say ‘smug’ in French?”

   “I don’t know. I don’t usually use that word.”

   Oliver raises his brows and narrows his eyes into an accusatory squint.

   “I don’t.”

   He makes a higher-pitched _hmm_ noise of delight that’s more than a hum, not quite a laugh. My eyes close involuntarily.

   “Fine, _suffusant_? And I’m not. Smug.” I point down to his feet as innocently as possible. “Can I take yours off now?”

   His inhalation is hard, enough to make his shoulders jerk as with a single laugh. “Not smug at all.” Oliver shakes his head for a moment, and then, realizing that I’ve taken the gesture as a no, takes my hand. “Yes, of course.”

   When he makes to sit down, I stop him and kneel at his feet, taking him firmly by the calf. He lifts, I remove. Lifts, remove. I stay kneeling and staring at his toes. For I don’t know how long. I only look up when he pushes the beret off my head and touches my hair; pulling it back a little, away from my face.

   When we’re done with our bedroom tour, we're still mostly dressed. Him, in sweatpants and a t-shirt and me, in my corduroy pants and plaid shirt though he’s unbuttoned my top two buttons to better kiss me there. He takes my hands, threading our fingers and pushing against one another. A smiling, near-dance. Our bare feet squeak on the shiny hardwood floors. I slept four hours the night before last and the exhaustion is starting to hit. I slump forward into his chest; dazed and smiling.

   Music plays, there's always music. He smells like my soap and also, leather. I can't stop giggling.

   “Where are you, Elio?”

   “I’m in the past.”

   The past is the hallway and those first kisses that led to these kisses. The vast continuum of kisses. After the Satie and up the stairs. He’s wearing far less clothing, the t-shirt I lent him and boxers, and is about to wear even less.

   I pull the Knicks t-shirt up over his head and his hair is mussed by the action; sticking up in two places like horns. His eyes, lit up and avid, look without looking. There’s a haze to them alongside the alertness, like a drugged person furiously focusing as they slip further away.

   The sentiment is mutual; I’m full of the need to categorize and remember, but struggling to track the information as I perceive it. His necklace, which I feel proprietary about, as if I’d claimed it long ago. The hair on his chest, the base of his neck, the hair trailing down to his navel. I follow the signs of his body with my hand and then his cock is in my fist. I let go to cup my hand beneath my mouth and spit, wrapping my now-wet fingers around the skin and slick and when my wrist twists, he breathes out with a hard, stuttering _heh_ sound. I lean my head back to regard him, hoping he’ll do it again, make that sound, because I want to hear it—maybe lower this time, more desperate. But he is wise to me, he usually is, and on the next languid pull, he blinks, mutely, leaning in close to kiss me, interspersing his kisses with softer sounds.

   “I will come in your hand,” he breathes on my cheekbone, each syllable halting and airy.

   “No, you won’t. You’re going to wait.”

   Past the doorway, into my bedroom, the light still soft. Suddenly shy, I stop and ask him if he wants music. He says no, with a wry smile, widening his eyes and looking down where his cock is still in my grip as if I’m shaking hands with it. _How do you do?_ Maybe I say this out loud. It twitches in response. Oliver laughs and reaches to pop open the button of my shorts.

   He purses his lips. “You’re not wearing underwear. Were you in that much of a hurry?”

   I stop his hands at the wrists, walking him back to push him down on the mattress. He lies there, splayed out, and is everything I could ever want. Hip bones and knees, tender knees, no bruises or healing wounds, clear-eyed and ready.

   “I can’t decide if those ducks are appalling or… not.”

   He answers for me by removing his boxers with a swift shimmy, kicking them off to land at my feet. For a moment, I stare at them, curled there like a sleepy animal. Then with the slow-but-determined movements of the shameless, I unbutton my shorts, letting them drop, and step out of them and into his boxers, pulling them up and letting the waistband sit low on my hips.

   I’ve been hard all fucking night, in varying degrees of tumescence. A veritable color brochure of sexual frustration. I press my palm down along the length of my erection, now clad in his underwear; blue cotton, ducks and hardness. Experience the strange lightheadedness that comes from feeling like you’re crossing a line. Only I don’t know the line, or what I’ve crossed. I stroke and stroke, as if trying to find it.

   “Don’t mind me.”

   My head snaps up, I’ve been rubbing myself in his boxers in front of him, my hand lifts apologetically. He laughs.

   “No, I mean it. Please don’t stop on my account. I can enjoy the view and maybe—”

   Oliver frowns, wiggling and arching his back, reaching behind him and pulling out a book from under the blanket: Murakami’s _A Wild Sheep Chase_. He studies the cover, then flips to read the back. Liking what he finds apparently, because he opens the book in front of his face, settling slightly, making himself comfortable.

   It’s a picture. That body, naked and semi-hard, with the book I’d been enjoying for a head instead of his face. Half a minute passes.

   “By all means, keep reading.”

   He lowers the book, eyeing me with the barest flicker of challenge, licks the pad of his index finger twice, and turns the page. The raised book obscures his face again and he crosses his ankles with obnoxiously deliberate insouciance.

   I want to fuck him until he screams.

   Oliver turns another page.

   It’s clear what needs to happens next. A way to alter the power dynamic, slow him down, make him wait. I kneel at the foot of the mattress and circle his ankle with my hand.

   “Read to me.”

   He angles his head, peering around the Murakami at me. “What?”

   “Read out loud. Whatever you’re on right now.”

   Oliver opens his mouth, then closes it, returning to his spot behind the book. He clears his throat and when he reads, it’s lower than his usual tone, more silken. “ _‘I forget her name. I could pull out the obituary but what difference would it make now. I’ve forgotten her name.’_ ”

   There’s a smile in his voice.

   “ _‘Suppose,’_ ” he continues, shifting his hips again. “ _‘I meet up with old friends and mid-swing the convers—’_ ”

   I tighten my grip on his ankle and he stops. “Yes?”

   “Elio.” The way he says it, my name could almost be a question.

   “Go on.” I drop my mouth to the bone there.

   He stills briefly, before continuing. “ _‘The conversation turns to her. No one ever remembers her name either.’_ ”

   Less of a smile, airier. Still too confident for my liking.

   As he reads, my hand slides up his leg past the hair of his shins and I use both the front and the back of it, the way people feel fabrics or grass, wanting to touch from all sides―knuckles and palms. When my fingers hit the back of his knees, I lean down at the waist like a supplicant to lick there and it’s smooth as ever. Blank and lovely, ready for me to whisper into, and he gasps, finally, between the words ‘ _sleep'_ and ‘ _with'_ and ‘ _anyone'._

   I kiss my way up his thigh. Bury my head at the juncture of leg and groin, wiry-soft pubic hair; more heat than smell. He’s entirely pale where I expect the tan line of his shorts to be, and memory takes over. I run a finger there, a line across, and he lifts his hips at that simple touch.

   “Keep reading.”

   “ _‘Still,’_ ” he says, his voice rough.

   I take hold of his cock at the root, thumb on his scrotum, feeling it tighten underneath, then nose along, up to his head, adding my tongue, from root to tip, to his slit. Our eyes meet and he has that hazy, flushed look that burned itself into my dreams all those years ago; memory and present meet at last. He drops the book on his chest.

   “Go on reading. Or I’ll stop.”

   Oliver nods and picks up the book again. “ _'The fact of the matter is, as—_ ” Here he gulps, since I have the tip of his cock in my mouth, but only that, not sucking or putting any pressure but there, just resting on my tongue, like a promise and he soldiers on, voice trembling only a little. I’m impressed and turned on by his diligence. The saliva pools in my mouth.

   “... _‘any cursory examination of the evidence would suffice to show, that she was quite willing to sleep with,’_ ” he trails off with a higher _aaaaah_ , breathing rapidly through his nose. “ _‘A-a-ny guy.’_ ”

   My hands aren’t on him, just my mouth, wet-hot and tight at his head. The tip of my tongue applying enough pressure to make him drop the book again. I release him then, gently placing my head on his thigh, watching the rapid rise and fall of his navel.

   “Pick it back up,” I mouth into his skin like I’m telling it a secret.

   He does.

   “ _Once, and only once, I asked her about these standards of hers,’_ ” Oliver reads on, raising the timbre a hair on the next paragraph to do the voice of the woman. I crawl over him to his other leg, which I neglected on the first go-round and he sighs as I knead the muscle of his thigh, pressing down with my palm until he gives a little more.

   “ _‘It’s not like anybody will do.’_ ”

   I love his voice. I made him read to me once or twice, and while I’d expected to find it beautiful, I was unprepared for how well he could tell the tale. Like an actor, but smarter, more aware of meaning, not entirely lost in instinct. The story he told was for me alone.

   He reads on. “ _‘Sometimes the whole idea turns me off. But you know, maybe I want to find out about a lot of different people. Or maybe that’s how my world comes together for me.’_ ”

   I sit sideways on my knees, bite-licking at the skin on his hip until it bruises red-to-violet, then stretch alongside, parallel to his leg but upside-down. My feet are by his shoulder and my face at his feet, and I open my mouth wide over his heel; he bucks, careful not to kick me. I love his feet. I’ve sucked his toes before; I’ve never done that with anyone else. What is it with his feet, in particular, his fingers, his everything that I need to swallow? The beautiful vein-branches on the dorsal surface, his other ankle which I nip at until he laughs, his hand on my legs, his tongue licking my shin.

   “I didn’t say you could stop.”

   Oliver looks like a child who has been caught pilfering gum from the corner tabac, frozen in place with a look that says: don’t punish me.

   My lips twist, briefly, then I school my face to blankness again.

   “Get on your stomach. Use your hands to hold the book. I’ll tell you when we’re done.”

   He flips over so quickly, I use all of my remaining self-control to not laugh.

   Hello, apricot. I kiss each rounded swell.

   “Continue.”

   “ _‘By sleeping with someone?’_ ” The smile is back.

   My hand comes down hard on his ass and he jumps, but interestingly, makes no noise. “Sorry,” I say, kissing the red mark of my handprint. “Couldn’t help it.”

   He’s paler than my memories but it’s New York. We could all use some sun.

   “ _‘Uh-huh.’_ ”

   Gently, I crawl over his legs so that I can sit between them, a front row seat to the jut of that ass, the seam of his balls, his cock, pushed down to point south and peering underneath―shiny and smooth at the head.

   “ _‘It was my turn to think things over.’_ ”

   I stretch my arms overhead, considering, then stroke my dick through the flap of those ridiculous duck boxers, before carefully settling down on my stomach, and putting my mouth directly on the trapped head and shaft of Oliver’s cock, licking up to his balls.

   “ _‘So tell me, has it helped you make sense of things?’_ ”

   He likes his balls caressed, licked but not sucked. Odd what one remembers about old partners. I can name so many things about what he likes. Doesn’t like. As if it has been six days since we were last lovers, not six years.

   “ _‘A little,’ she said.'_ ” The muscles in his back shift. “ _‘From the winter through the summer I hardly saw her. The university was blockaded and shut down’_ —”

   I gather saliva in my mouth and let it drip out in one long string onto the underside of his dick. And spread the wetness along his shaft with my hand. He gasps, with a light _ah_.

   “— _‘on.’_  Oh fuck. _‘Several occasions, and in any case, I’_ —”

   His penis is beautiful and, dare I say, as friendly as I remember. How it used to jump in my hand. Oliver was good at playing it cool, cooler than me, anyone was better, really, but that he couldn’t hide. The spark of his cock, cut and winsome, pushing against my leg, my ass, mouth; whatever he could press against. His body curled around me where I would give and give.

   Using my knee, I push against his right thigh, then use the other to shift the left. Like a frog on a lily pad.

   “I can’t. Elio, I can’t.”

   “Is that a no?”

   I caress his back until his breathing slows and lean over to kiss down his spine.

   “No.” His voice is cashmere quiet. “It’s not a no.”

   Usually a hairy man will have a hairy asshole. That’s not the case with Oliver. I didn’t know to ask him back then if he groomed and now, it barely matters. It only matters if he’d hoped for this. I spread him open with one hand, spit right on him, my aim, fantastic, then lean in to lick with the widest part of my tongue. Jostle, really. Side to side. He jerks forward, his face falling flat onto the pages of the book, and when I spit on him again, spreading the saliva around with the tip of my tongue, his muffled groans scoring the action, I think: what words is he touching with his lips? Is it only one or two? Are they seeping in, like my tongue? Do they connect? Like the sounds of his pleasure from his mouth to my cock? I look up, turning slightly to bite his ass cheek.

   “Read to me, what’s the first word you see.”

   He lifts his head. “ _‘Personal’_ ,” he rasps.

   Perfect.

   More long swipes of my tongue on his asshole, around the pucker and in, adding a finger as well. His breaths are brief, needy gasps. When I stop, I don’t even have to ask.

   “ _‘Own’_ ,” he rasps.

   “Yes,” I say, curling my tongue to better slip it in, not violently, but slow, enter and pull out, repeat and repeat, tender and full, my hands kneading his thigh on one side, hip on the other. He’s pushing back against me as I am pushing in to him. I remove my tongue and just kiss, suck, wide and wet. Spreading him open with my hands as his moans become mine.

   Oliver shudders beneath me, his hips moving in small thrusts which I mirror, my cock rubbing the sheets.

   He mumbles something and there are two blind-swats of his hand on my head before he grabs me by the hair.

   “What?”

   I wonder if my face is as red as his; my lips must certainly be redder. He pants, looking over his shoulder.

   “Stop.”

   His thigh is thick and muscular, inviting me to swoop in and bite and suck on its meat. I leave a light imprint of my front teeth, bruising around it. We stare at each other as I wipe at my face with the back of my arm, ravenous and triumphant.

   “Give me more words, Oliver.”

   “No,” he says, with the barest hint of a smile.

   I return it.

   “One more word.” It's almost a plea.

   “No,” he says, louder and more firm, rolling over, cock springing up and back, with a muffled slap. He brings his hand down and fists it, thumb swiping-swift over the head, his hips rising from the bed like they are being pulled upwards by the force of my stare.

   “One more.” I know he won’t, but I have to try.

   Oliver sits up, pulling me to him by the neck, a hand at each side. I don’t know if I’ve made a noise so far, I’ve been so focused on him but I feel it reverberate in my throat then, bracketed by those big thumbs; the sound immediately swallowed up by his mouth and tongue. Suddenly, I’m the passive one. Not entirely though; my tongue reaches for him as he pushes me back, still holding me tight by the neck. He presses one thumb down the column of my throat and I know. Opening my mouth and trying not to smile as he brings me closer again to spit right onto my tongue, then follow with a kiss. So wet. Then I do the same to him, except he still has a hold on me, so I push into it, rising up on my knees and he presses against my windpipe as he takes what I give him. Makes the gladdest of sounds as he swallows.

   I fail. My smile is enormous.

   He is so red. Fuck-red. Sweaty and panting. I must be as well. A drop of perspiration rolls down my face and my tongue darts out and catches it with a gasp of a laugh.

   “Come on. One word.”

   “I’ll give you three. Fuck. The. Book,” and lets go of me to shove it off the mattress on to the floor, motioning me to lie down, like I was before. Feet facing him, face to face with his crotch. Unlike him, I don’t pretend that I am anything but completely amenable and get right into position.

   He turns on his side and pulls me by the hem of those duck boxers until we align more perfectly and carefully, and pulls them down, his mouth immediately hot and open at my balls, which he cups in his hand like fruit. I feel his breath on them before the swipe of his tongue and in turn, bury my face in his thighs in response, eyes closed and moaning. I feel my way blindly back to his cock, cheek along the length, taking him in my mouth while at the same time, he takes me in his. I’m a poor observer, not looking at all, I just want his cock in my mouth and, having it, finally, groan-gasp around the head and past; to the long thick length of his shaft, as he pushes further, takes more of me in his mouth, both of us in tandem, the hair of his beard tickling my thighs.

   Dimly, I hear the hard _glug_ of my cock hitting the back of his throat. Vividly, I feel the pleasure of it.

   We fuck each other’s faces with a slow, syrupy pull. I suck him off, pushing in and pulling back, and I am lost in it, so lost, have been lost and his mouth... his mouth is a furnace. I feel him shift back, concentrating on my head, his tongue flat, then insistent at the crease of my slit. His hand, which had been holding me tight at the hip, slides around me, large at my ass and he grabs, his fingertips strong, to pull me even further into his mouth, closer, closer and I moan around his length, slick with saliva, spit everywhere, coating my cheeks down to my neck. He’s grazing the back of my throat and the sensation of his building pleasure connects to my cock, just as deep in his mouth, his throat. One creature.

   Time had not exaggerated the quality of his blow job. He murmurs around my skin as he licks and sucks.

   He clutches my shoulder, tight and urgent, and I nod, not letting him move away, but keeping him there, in my mouth and deep, as he comes, his cock pulsing as my throat accommodates the surge. I love it, but am also sorry I’m swallowing even as I do so; I wanted his come inside me but also all over me, hot on my chest and cheeks and neck. It always cools too fast, ejaculate, but that first contact is the best kind of shock. I remember. From our first night together. I remember both. I’d hoped for both again and this night is already much shorter than that one as it’s very nearly gone.

   Oliver pulls his mouth off of me but continues pumping my cock with his hand, small, dazed grin on his spit-slicked face, giving me a sheepish look.

   “I know. Come here.”

   I crawl over to him, dimly aware that his boxers are still around one of my ankles. I kick them off, and slither up and on top of him. He takes my face in his hands, pulling me to his mouth and we kiss so deeply—it’s all sweat and come and spit and tongues, tongues, tongues. His eyes open and close, blue then lashes, lashes and blue, and he’s smiling and God, how I loved that, missed it. His smiles through our kisses, the happy curve of his lips, no one was ever happier, is happier. Happiest. I might have missed that more than the taste.

   “Keep going. We’re not done.”

   “Yes.”

   We’ll never be done.

   I rub my cock on his thigh slowly, surprisingly not desperate, not yet.

   “Oliver,” he says, at my temple, firmer than I’m feeling at the moment, lost between and between.

   “Elio.”

   “Take me.”

   It’s laughable how quickly I scramble. Sitting up to grab the lube, pouring generously into my hand and I’m fast at this, I don’t have time to waste but I stop, as the stuff drips off my fingers onto the bed. He’s flat on his back in front of me, chest rising and falling. Star shining and breathing so hard, his stomach sucks in, nearly concave, with each sharp inhale.

   “I haven’t gotten my second test.”

   “I know.”

   I swallow heavily.

   “Don’t be sick,” he says, as if that’s all we need.

   “No. That’s not—”

   “That’s it. You won’t be sick.”

   “That’s stupid.”

   “No, it’s not. I know you’re not sick. You would never put me in danger.”

   You.

   I am not here, naked and ready, with him instead of Lina because he’s stupid and she isn’t. He’s trusting and she isn’t. Or she’s soft and he’s not or any of that idiotic nonsense. He’s Oliver and he’s soft and hard and I’m stupid and trusting. As is he. We match in stupidity and texture, in forgetting and remembering. We are at the precipice, jumping happily off the edge.

   With a minimal back and forth flick of wrist, my finger slides inside him. I know it’s cold so I lean in close, mouth-to-mouth, to shush him when he gasps, kissing him through it until his kisses turn needy. Two fingers. I have strong fingers, I know where to make them land so that the note rings out the way I want. I beckon with vibrato. I push down on his foot with my own. Toe to toes. Oliver moans, clear and full. Right. It’s tight. Three. It always has to be three, three fingers, and he’s barely kissing me, his mouth is open at mine, breathing raggedly. His cheeks are red like emergencies. Do you want another? Yes, he replies. I want all of you. I take back my hand and his eyes are near-closed, watching me pour more lube in the cup of my palm, then spread it on myself like honey and kneel, my hand wide at his hip, his leg akimbo and aligning. I push. In. A bit more. Push. I’m breathing. Don’t forget.

   Oliver’s eyes shut tight and his face flushes; sweat at his temples and forehead.

   “Elio.”

   He opens his eyes, pupils black and loving.

   “Okay?”

   He nods.

   I push in further still, watch the feelings pass over his face like clouds. Push, push more and more, then fully and the action wrings a choked groan out of him.

   “Oliver.”

   I can barely hear him, his throat sounds raw. My hips move, slap to him. Steady and rough; rougher than I’d expected to be should this moment arise. I cannot be soft.

   It feels so good, being inside him, all that heat, but the laugh lines, the pink of his lips—that’s good, too. His face and how taken apart it is, no one sees this face, I’m sure of it. Not like this. Not like me. I am furious with certainty and fuck up into him, faster, until the angle makes his face shift again.

   Between us, he’s hard once more. I smile and lick the corner of my mouth, clamping my hand down at his hip and slamming in harder.

   “I’m touching you. It’s not the last time. It won’t be.”

   I don’t know how I’m speaking when all I can think is: _pull back, slow, so slow_. Until I’m nearly out of his body again. (I don’t want to be.)

   “Okay,” he manages.

   I push in again.

   “Don’t stop, O-O-Oliver.”

   He’s stuttering, I stutter. Who is talking? I don’t know. Out. Slow. _Fuck._ As soon as he regains his voice, I seem to lose mine.

   “Don’t stop.”

   In.

   “Oliver. Don’t stop.”

   “I won’t.” I whisper it into his skin. “I’m touching you.”

   “Yes.”

   I pull back again, even slower, drunk on the build. Something beyond arousal, more than desire, feeling stacked on top of feeling. Pressure like an endless note with perfect tone. Back in and closer. Angling closer. To him. One hand grasping his knee. God, his knees.

   “Take me, take me, take me.”

   Oliver is babbling and every other word is a breath at my neck and face as I push harder and harder and harder as he meets each thrust, legs wrapped around me and thighs. I’m sucking and licking every bit of skin I can reach, which is hardly anything. More air than skin, I can’t seem to make contact. His necklace is in my mouth again. The metal tang seems as sweet as candy.

   He’s telling me not to stop. How can I now that I’ve started? I know myself.

   “You.”

   Elio.

   Oliver.

   You.

   You.

   Your.

   Your heart beats in your ears.

   It feels like the sound is going straight into his mouth.

   His eyes are wide open and blue, fixed on you with certainty. Alertness beyond alertness. Your mouth to his, kiss sharp because his canine teeth are sharp, and you like to press your tongue at their keenest point. You don’t know who is making all this noise, like a train engine, but it triggers a laugh in you that mixes with your climax. Your name, his name; laughter and pleasure. And please let him stay this time, never leave. Elio, Elio, Elio. The star at his neck, that birthmark on his shoulder. More you than anyone or anything, you can’t get any closer. There is no more than this.

   Afterwards, you shower together and watch his blonde hair turn dark under the spray. His hands around your neck, mouth full of water which he jokingly squirts like a fountain statue straight into your mouth. He shampoos your hair, carefully keeping it out of your eyes with quick swipes of a foamy index finger; you do the same, kneading your fingers into his scalp as the suds rinse away. He closes his eyes, looking content. You are also content. The quiet softens everything like an embrace.

   He’s been semi-hard all this time and you touch him the way you would yourself. Because he hadn't come again and you want him to. He stops your hand and kneels, staring up at you, grateful and sure. Like Odysseus, finally arrived at Ithaca, on firm land at last and gazing homewards.

   This is adoration. You adore, we are found in the act of adoring. We.

   It’s morning now. The espresso is black, the foam on top brownish-yellow. Your hair is wet again, and slowly, you flatten it to the side with your palm. Black shirt, button, the four pin-prick holes the thread goes through. Your eyes are heavy and hollow, and you can’t remember when you fell asleep only that you did and hadn’t wanted to. Outside, a tawny cardinal chirps sharply on a wavering branch. The house is empty. You know because you’ve looked. Twice.

   The Ashbery is there on the table, pen clipped to the cover. You do not read Oliver’s inscription; you’d rather go back to sleep than know what he’s written, but you play with the book, pushing the corner with your pinkie finger, towards you and away.

   David Byrne yowls from the stereo. He wants to be with the one he loves and the steel drums affirm that. It feels like the wrong song. The wrong David, anyway.

   The sleeve of your new suit isn’t folding right. You attempt to fix it, but your fingers keep slipping. Your head feels melon-ripe and your body… aches. Shivers.

   But more. The Haring Swatch wasn’t by your lamp. You were still wearing his Bulova when you woke up, alone and nearly naked in that unbuttoned plaid shirt. You’re wearing it now. It makes sense there, on your wrist.

   You are trying to rewrite the music in your head as a kind of distraction; a kinder distraction. From the knot in the throat, the heavier silence. Second and Third sections, done. First section, almost. Fourth?

   A quadruple fugue. Four parts to end the fourth section. No, a triple. One, two, three.

   The Oblique Strategies deck is in front of you and the card you flip over with a shaking hand reads: _Ghost Echoes_. You flip another. _Courage!_ No, you have none. One more. _Just carry on_. You repeat it another two times. To let it sink in. To make it true. Just carry on, just carry on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please keep in mind that Elio is a somewhat unreliable narrator. Oliver will explain Stendahl's A Trip To Rome and Oblique Strategies in chapter three. Sorry for all the dialogue, they have a lot of nothing they need to say.
> 
> Thank you to my wonderful, brilliant beta readers Bryrosea and Cheshirecatstrut for bringing Chapter 2 to the light. All remaining errors are mine.


	3. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place at the same time as the previous chapter, from roughly 2:30 AM onward on Friday, December 8, 1989.
> 
> Happy Thanksgiving! I'm grateful for a lot of things but especially for all of you. Thank you for reading fic, encouraging fanwork, and following this story.
> 
> I struggled with posting this. It's been done for a while, I just couldn't stop sitting on it. Consequently, this stupidly long chapter is dedicated to Ulliva, my double leather darling, for listening to me whine for a thousand years and for keeping me in fic diamonds in the interim. In lieu of friendship bracelets and wristwatches, please enjoy this dubious gift.

   You should have known that once you crossed the line, all your previous objections would burn to ash. It’s nearly 3:00 AM and you haven’t stopped kissing him since the piano. You haven’t stopped because there is no reason to stop.

   Elio returns to himself, eyes suddenly sharp, putting your finger in the wet heat of his maw and sucking the wedding ring right down the length of it. He opens his mouth and there it is, a gold circle on his tongue, and your breath quickens, thinking, he’s going to swallow it. Because he _would_. Swallow it. He’s a perverse little fucker (you love this about him, no point in pretending otherwise) and is exactly the sort of person who would ingest the symbol of your love and loyalty to another just so he could shit it back out.

   He spits it into his hand—a long, clear, unbroken line of saliva from his lips to the ring and the two of you duck your heads to look at it, glistening in his palm. The connection breaks when he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and inhales deeply, a sound that’s entirely too much like relief. There’s some apology in his expression, some embarrassment, but also a hint of defiance; a twisty quirk of the lips that says all-too-clearly, “You don’t need that anymore.”

   Using his fingers like crab pincers, he plucks the ring off of his palm and walks away, down the hall, his feet slapping warmly against the floor. He stops, looking around as if lost, before placing the band on a small alcove built into the wall. Elio lets his hand linger on the edge, leaning towards it, and the weight of the moment travels from him to you.

   You say his name, your name, to bring him back and when he returns the center of that now-opened hand still glistens. Elio regards you, brows furrowed, and spits in his palm again, a big, white glob of it. He pulls you towards him with a furious little grunt, shoving his wet hand into the flap of your underwear and it feels. Good. Too good, right away. Much too good. A sharp gasp escapes from your throat as you fuck into the close of his fist, the wetness like his kisses, which are harsher now, rougher. None of this is yours, nothing about this moment is; it’s all his.

   Perhaps he’s angry because he thinks he’s forced you into a decision.

   He hasn’t. You are entirely willing. The grin on your face must show all your teeth because his eyes seem to look everywhere at once.

   The anger, if that’s what it was, is short-lived. Elio grabs the back of your neck and nuzzles into your collarbones, chest, mumbling, “Sorry, sorry,” shifting forward, kisses kind again. But he’s still working your cock and you press him to you, stilling him, almost begging him to stop. You pant together, swimmers leaping out of the water to breathe.

   You can’t come, not like this this, not in a hallway. Not feeling like you do, like you’re barely held together. It can’t end now, fast and spilling hot all over his hand.

   “You won’t,” he assures you, taking his hand out from your boxers and wiping it on your hip, leaving a streak of wet.

   Your breathing slows, moving tenderly to his music in the dim light. Heavy with the kind of longing that keeps lovers connected after years of separation.

   “Better?” Elio murmurs.

   You answer with kisses. Only your heads touch, because you are careful to keep your bodies apart. Chaste and not chaste. One kiss, his eyes flick up at you. Another kiss, his mouth opening to receive. What a reception. Three, a warm meeting of tongues. He laughs and you pull back to see it, that sleepy-eyed sweet filthiness.

   Elio leans forward, straining his neck to meet you, as if the rest of his body is held back by restraints and he has to fight to reach your mouth. It’s your turn to laugh, tilting your head away from his reach. He stares and breathes, held in suspension, until you give. Four kisses, five. More open, more wet. Six. His rosy bottom lip, soft and smooth, and you suck on it, eliciting a hard hum from the back of his throat that goes straight to your dick.

   His skin is hot under your hands, bones underneath and new heft. He’s still thin and angular, but muscular now, too; more like an actual dancer though he has always been that—a dancer, undulating around you. Now there’s real strength to his arms, thighs. You felt it outside in the snow, when you fought like hell to keep a grip on him, and it’s clearer here, where you can see the meat and muscle of his body underneath all those clothes; proof of change.

   Change. It’s always change, isn’t it? The concept you’ve loved most in your life. The exalted idea. The one you’ve always been most afraid of.

   There is a warmth in you turned to fever; Oliver-Elio, Elio-Oliver.

 

* * *

 

   The events of evening-turned-night, recalled in the aftermath, were as inevitable as the turn in a classic story.

   You convinced yourself that your contentment was merely the result of seeing him again and that you would need nothing more. Merely, as if it were nothing to actually be in the same room, aware of one another. The thrill of hearing him speak, and, whenever a particular topic struck him, that wheezy, charming gasp of a laugh. The wonder of his listening, watching each of your words echo in his face. No prologues necessary, no endless explanations. The two of you together in perfect sympathy.

   But it’s more than that, of course. There’s the hunger that accompanies his proximity; strong enough to make you dumb and unsteady. You knew you’d want him, your longing steadfast and deliberately not forgotten, stoked over the years, kept alive. Those long legs and the now-bare expanse of skinny wrist. You had prepared yourself for it, that desire, but hadn’t expected to be so ravenous.

   Smoking up had nearly been your undoing, the weed making you reckless enough to run your thumb along the corner of his lips, ever pink and sly, as if it was an acceptable thing to do without preamble. To your former lover, _the_ lover, the one you hadn’t seen in years and had no right to touch. How he seemed to open at that touch; hovering over you on that sofa, his knees pressed against your thigh. The wanting that grew more and more unbearable the longer you spent near him. Knowing, because it had once been your pride to know these things, how turned on he was, how hard.

   Of course, you were hard, too.

   Each time his attention was occupied, you drank him in. When he was driving back to his place, hunched over the steering wheel, when he hung up your coat, or hit a ping-pong ball over the net with a balletic jump, tongue between his teeth. The smell of wine from his mouth; the stain of it. On the phone, smoothing down the line of his dress-shirt buttons, the material wouldn’t settle and slivers of pale skin peeked through. His index finger circled the shape of each button absentmindedly and your eyes followed the motion. The mercurial shifts of his body; at times, as still as a deer, then fast; an ermine in the snow.

   The quiet—the quality of your shared quiet.

   Listening to music from that King-sized mattress on the floor, like college students, his thin fingers trailing across the letters of the P.I.L. t-shirt he’d put on. He has a long, pale scratch on one, not quite a scar, nearly invisible. You raise your eyebrows in its direction and he shrugs, as if it’s not a story worth telling. What you want then, want most, is to take hold of his hand and kiss that mark. But you can’t, not yet. Because while he is your friend, he will always be more, too. Touch will always tip the balance.

   Multiple times throughout the night, you acknowledged you were approaching a point where you could no longer avoid an accident. And each time, you were certain you’d swerved and avoided the crash, but really you were only driving faster, more assuredly, to an even greater calamity.

   Elio holds your face between his hands. His mouth hangs open, and when he licks his lips, his eyes close, eyebrows knitting with worry again—only he’s shushing you. Warm, small _shh shh shh_ ’s murmured into your neck and cheeks. His eyes blink open at your nod.

   No. This is no calamity.

   The calamity was the wait.

 

* * *

 

   Following the Satie and the hallway, he winds up inside you, as you suspected he would. By your invite, at your pleasure, the true owner of it all. In the bathroom, after, you stand at the toilet, pissing, and he holds your dick, mouth wide at your shoulder, gnawing. Like you never left Bergamo. In the shower, he cleans you. Everywhere. Eyes steady and mouth open, he lowers his shoulder to reach, touching with the gentlest of hands. As if you are small, and in need of the utmost tenderness. After drying yourselves, before the coats and the hats, the kissing tour—you cough and grimace. Elio slinks into your space the way a cat might, tail curling around your neck while you try to read but swiftly give up, secretly pleased because, cat. He places his slim hands on your forehead, the back of your neck. You settle into his touch.

   “You feel hot. I think you’re getting sick.”

   “I think you’re right.”

   He kisses you on the lips with a small frown.

   “Hey. You probably shouldn’t.” Another cough. “Kiss me.”

   His look is pure disbelief. “What?”

   “You don’t have to kiss me,” you say.

   “Yes, I do.” Elio pitches forward, part-attack, part-swoon; his mouth wide open like Cronus and you back away swiftly. He stops for a moment, then takes a step toward you, hands behind his back. The picture of innocence in the plaid, collared shirt and sweater you selected. 

   “Come on. It doesn’t matter. I’m sick, too.” He coughs then, into his elbow, touches his throat with a pained grimace. It’s so absurdly theatrical, you laugh.

   “Fine. Get over here, you.”

   Elio does not comply; he remains where he is, hands at his back again. Crinkling his nose, smiling. “Are you still high?”

   “No. Are you?”

   “No.”

   He leaps and wraps his arms around your neck, deliberately licking all around your lips and into your mouth, kicking up his legs to wrap them around you; somehow, you manage to hold him up despite the constant motion. The warm seat of his corduroy pants, under your palms, and his whole body wriggles madly as if he’s trying to press every bit of himself against every bit of you. When he settles, it’s with a sigh, sliding out of your hold but not away. His feet touch the floor and shift between yours, and he rubs the crown of his head against your chest. His hair is damp.

   “We need to dry your hair.”

   “Why?” frowning slightly, like he’s just remembered an important detail.

   “Because you shouldn’t go to bed with it wet.”

   “Oh.” He moves back, then forward again to nuzzle your shoulder. “Makes sense.”

   You rub between his shoulder blades, laughing softly. He slumps further into you.

   “I’m sorry, Oliver,” he murmurs against your shirt.

   “Why are you sorry?”

   His kiss is close-mouthed but ardent. Its restraint makes you lick past the seam of his lips right into his surprised mouth, and he gives a huge open laugh, big enough to narrow his eyes to nearly-closed. “Ow,” he says, quietly, after a minute or so of kissing.

   “What?”

   Elio tips back, biting his bottom lip and putting a hand to his cheek. “My face is burning. From your beard. Did you just get it trimmed?”

   You walk him backwards towards the light and tilt up his chin. The skin of his jaw is pink and he eyes you with something like excitement.

   “Now it’s my turn to be sorry,” you say, trying to match the exact quality of his stare.

   He swallows. “Don’t be. The burn is everywhere.” Guiding your hand down his neck, to his chest, abdomen, thighs, cock, then back up to his face; all the affected locales. “I like it. It’s proof.”

   “Proof of what?”

   “That you’re here.” Elio closes his eyes and shakes his head, as if he’s chastising himself.

   You rest your thumbs at his temple, fingers cradling the bones of his skull. He lets his head go heavy in your hands, and the weight shifts from one palm to the other as he rubs against them, eyes closed and murmuring.

   “Please,” and doesn’t say for what. “Please,” he repeats and repeats, his husky voice fraying on the long _eeee_. All you hear is a command, and that is more than fine.

 

* * *

 

   Like a co-conspirator, he holds your hand as you snoop around his bedroom—though can it properly be called that when it’s a sanctioned trespass? Out of the corner of your eye, you see him watching patiently; it would seem at odds with his usual energy if you didn’t know him better. But do you know him best? You’re not sure how to feel about the voice in your head that emphatically answers: _yes_. How could you possibly? It’s not realistic in the slightest to think so. And yet your blood still sings _yes_.

   A narrow closet with a few pressed suits is located in the small hallway outside of the master bathroom. A luxury-brand suitcase sits inside. In the other corner of the bedroom, hundreds of CDs are piled in a couple of milk crates—his albums are upstairs, he tells you, by the record player. A red journal, stacked next to the bed, pen clipped to the front, photo tucked in the cover; a blurry Polaroid of a big blue-gray eye and white-blonde bangs. On the back, tidy schoolgirl script in purple ink reads: “ _voor Poepie_ , 18.6.87.” It’s not the fiancee. You hold it up and he shrugs.

   “A friend.”

   “You have a lot of friends.”

   He laughs, then swallows. “Yeah.”

   “What does…” you lean in to read, “‘Poepie’ mean?”

   “Little shit.”

   He nods and you laugh, deeply, shaking your head and smiling at the photo. “I like this person.”

   “You would. And she, you.” He sways on his feet, brings his knuckles up to his chin. “Can I ask you a favor?”

   “Sure. What is it?”

   “It’s kind of… unusual.”

   Impatiently, you gesture for him to go on. “Elio, you should know by now I’ll do whatever you ask.”

   His mouth drops open. “Okaaaay. Umm.” He glances towards the corner of the bedroom, covering his mouth with the tips of his fingers. His hand shakes.

   “You good?”

   “Yes.” He nods rapidly, then pivots in your direction. “I bought this cologne at the airport, can I spray you with it?”

   “Seriously?”

   Elio slides over to his dresser smoothly, grabs a small brown box from the top and holds it out, shaking it side-to-side. He looks so serious. As if there’s a deeper meaning to this simple request.

   “Why?”

   He starts to speak, then stops. There’s the bright red splotch on his cheek again. It's beautiful.

   “Actually, you know what? Never mind. Go ahead, put it on me.”

   Elio tears into the cellophane, opening the box, pulling out a slim brown bottle. He throws the detritus into a small tin trash bin, uncaps the bottle and puts the top in his pocket. Extends it towards you like a sommelier.

   “How does it smell?”

   “I don’t know, I didn’t try it. Like leather, supposedly.”

   “And what should I impart from that?”

   He looks to the side and licks his lips; a thousand filthy considerations to sift through, it would seem. You both start laughing, and soon enough, you’re swiping at each other. Elio wields the cologne like a weapon, over his head, finger poised on the spray.

   “Where are you spraying me?”

   “Your back.”

   You pull the two t-shirts he gave you to wear over the back of your head. Turn towards the window, face the snow outside. He sidles up behind you and touches the clasp of your necklace, your shoulder blades and spine, as if you were a map and he’s tracing routes. This isn’t new; it’s achingly not-new. He sighs at your shoulder and kisses you there, then ducks down to lick the mottled white scarring he’s only just met. You keep your hands in your shirts like they’re a muff and laugh; he steps away. The cologne lands cool on your skin and the scent is... well. No.

   Turning around, you catch Elio sniffing the bottle with an alarmed expression. “I’m sorry.”

   “This smells. Wretched.”

   “I didn’t know!” 

   “Like stale olives. And ammonia.”

   “Wait. Turn around.” He settles behind you and breathes in along your spine. There’s a tap of hands there, elbows or back, and then shaking. It’s him, his body. He’s laughing. Punching your shoulder blade with soft fists.

   “I’m glad this amuses you,” you say, pulling the t-shirts back on again. “This definitely doesn’t smell like leather. More like leather bar. Leather bar toilets.”

   Elio grabs your arm and squeezes, struggling with a helpless kind of laughter, clutching his stomach. “Oh, my God.”

   “Leather bar urinal cake.”

   “Stop, please stop. I’m sorry. Here.” He sprays the foul stuff in the air and jumps through its mist, spinning back to face you, all teeth visible in a crinkle-nosed grimace.

   “Why did you do that?!”

   “So we’d both smell.”

   “Yes, but now we both _smell_.”

   His hand flies up to his hair. “Fuck.”

   “Not smelling like that, I won’t.”

   Elio throws the cologne in the garbage. Miraculously, it doesn’t shatter on impact, but it clatters, loud and percussive. Elio covers his mouth with both hands, shoulders raised nearly to his ears, bracing himself until it becomes apparent you’re both safe from additional olfactory attack.

   “What is this called, so I know to take it to a landfill if I ever get it as a gift?”

   “Bel Ami.”

   “Bel Ami. Like the _novel_? Elio, when will you learn? Context is everything. No wonder it smells like a dissolute Frenchman pissing on your face.”

   He grins, disarmingly bright and mischievous, and with a glide, moves right in front of you, nearly nose-to-nose. “Do you want to take another shower?” Slides his hands into your sweatpants, cupping your ass, incorrigible as ever. You remove them with a pointed look of warning and push him away gently. He shoves you back, less gently. It ends with his arms around your neck, hanging like an amorous, clinging vine; your mouth on his shoulder as he laps at your neck, gazing past him to the floor.

   “You have another phone jack up here. Is that another line?”

   “Yes. Private line. I have two numbers. Business is first floor only.” He dips down to stroke your knees, while deftly slipping a leg between your thighs.

   “Huh. But Marzia called you on the downstairs line.”

   “That’s probably because I didn’t plug in the phone. Since I didn’t answer, she must have switched to the other number. She has both,” he murmurs into your neck, biting along the edge of your jaw in small, tidy nips.

   “I see. Will you give me that number?”

   Elio nods, his fingers traveling back up and under your t-shirts. You sigh is fond, loving his ever-present horniness. “What are those?”

   There’s a stack of index cards by Elio’s stereo, a Sharpie pen balanced on top—something handwritten on each of them. You disentangle from his grip and he spins around, following the path of your eyes. Swoops past you, deftly picking up the stack with a long-armed swipe.

   “What are these?” He displays the cards, the stack blank-side-up against his palm, a disingenuous expression on his face.

   “Yes,” you huff, amused as ever by your game.

   “They’re Oblique Strategies.” He raises his eyebrows and presses his lips together; they go even redder at the place where they meet. You take the card he offers and read it. It says, in his recognizable, slapdash scrawl, _What is the reality of the situation?_

   “Is this an abstract game of some kind? Or have you joined a cult? Is this EST?”

   Elio snorts. “Oh, Oliver. You know I’d make a terrible cult member.”

   It’s true. You do know. He is far too questioning and self-directed. He hands you another and you read it out loud.

   “ _Tape your mouth_.”

   He smiles at you. You smile back. “Is this meant for me or you? Because I’ll tape your mouth if you want.”

   That smile of his goes sideways, like he’s trying to chew it away. “They’re artistic prompts created by artist Peter Schmidt and musician Brian Eno.”

   “Eno from Roxy Music.”

   “Yes,” he nods. “You like Roxy Music.”

   It’s not a question, so much as a statement. You nod back. “I do.”

   “Me too. I like his ambient solo work as well. Anyway, independently they were trying to create something artists could use to break past blocks or stagnation. Eventually, realizing they had a joint interest, they collaborated and came up with these. I’ve been stuck on my piece—”

   “Your sonata.”

   “Yes, my sonata, and I started using them. I have an actual set back in Paris. I handmade this one.”

   He hands you another card. _Into the impossible._ You hold your breath for a moment, like a swimmer about to dive.

   “Could this be used for life decisions?”

   Elio bites his lip, “I suppose. But you would have to figure out a way to interpret artistic prompts as real-life directives. ‘Break a string’ would be difficult to interpret in a non-literal sense.”

   “Really? I disagree. ‘Break a string’ could be… what? Remove something vital from the equation. Deliberately. Work around it.”

   He is not an obstruction. Or a directive. A goal or an end. You can’t bear the thought of him not being part of the equation.

   “Pick a card for yourself,” you tell him. “What does it say?”

   His long fingers remove one from the deck with a flourish and he looks down at it. Laughs.

   “What does it say?”

   “Give way to your worst impulse,” he whispers.

   “Okay. Now do it. Actually do it. In life.”

   Elio shakes his head, and there’s a bit of terror in the movement.

   “I’ll live, Elio.” But you’re not entirely sure what he’ll do, or how you’ll respond.

   He puts down the cards at his feet and picks up the Sharpie pen. Swallows. “Roll up your sleeve and give me your arm.”

   You do as he says. Because you told him you would.

   “Do you remember when I took you to the source of my stream—the falls in the Alpi Orobie?”

   “Of course.” Laughter takes over, along with memory. “You fell about a hundred times. Your legs were all scratched up by nettles. I cleaned your cuts that night before we went out.”

   He’s silent. Closing his eyes and weaving slightly and you remember then, watching the ferocious mist from the falls landing on his face. Kissing him as he stood, arms outstretched and to-the-bone wet. When he opens his eyes again, you are closer. His nostrils, the tip of his nose, go slightly pink.

   “Have you read Stendhal’s _On Love_?”

   You glance at his lips; they are as red as a valentine. “Wasn’t _Armance_ enough?”

   Elio rolls his eyes like someone who has never learned how to do it correctly. The action moves his whole body forward and back, his lashes fluttering madly around the whites. “He talks about love. How love is formed. And describes it as a trip to Rome.”

   He uncaps the Sharpie pen with his mouth and stills your arm. He draws a series of upside-down V’s like mountain peaks, then a line below it and writes the numbers one, two, three and four at the start of the line. On the other end of the line, he draws a house with a cross on top—a church—and underneath it writes, in all capitals— _ROME_ , preceded in parenthesis by the words ‘a trip to…’

   The pen is capped and placed behind his ear. “In his analogy, love begins with indifference, and that word is represented by the city of Bologna. And eventually ends with perfection, i.e. Rome.”

   His breath is warm on your arm as he blows, drying the words there.

   “Where is Bologna in this diagram?”

   “I’ve removed it. ‘Cause it’s dull. And irrelevant.” 

   Elio speaks with that familiar sulkiness that drove you wild back then. The words sound damp, dripping with mysterious insinuation. His bottom lip, all pout, and that faux-reluctant mouth. It's not entirely deliberate, the provocation. Elio is a mumbler. He mumbles. But all that mush-mouthed conversation made everything intimate in a way that made you want to run. Even now you want to pinch him, so that he stops and startles, knowing full well he would never. His eyes could only give you challenge. He holds all the cards.

   “Also, I want to start our journey in the mountains.”

   “The source of the water.”

   He smiles then immediately licks that bottom lip. It’s a gesture of embarrassment; done to still his mouth, that gorgeous too-wide grin he can’t quite suppress.

   You know way too much about his mouth.

   “According to Stendhal, love is crystallized in the mind. We depart from indifference and begin a journey. The journey has four steps. Give me your other arm.”

   You roll up your other sleeve and extend your arm.

   “Thank you.” He retrieves the pen from behind his ear, uncaps and writes, “One: Admiration. Two: Acknowledgement. Three: Hope. Four: Delight.”

   The last four words are crowded together to fit. He blows on his handiwork. This time, after capping the pen, he puts it in his pocket and touches each corresponding number as he explains.

   “One: I admired you before I even met you. Two: You acknowledged me at breakfast with the Leopardi—I know that now, but didn’t then. Three: I hoped when we kissed in the grass. Four: I delighted in you ever and ever again.”

   The words bleed a little on your skin, the ink blurring around each letter like a watercolor. His answers were so effortless, he’d thought about them. As if you were the prime example; the first person that came to mind.

   “So,” your voice is raspy, the back of your throat tickles. “Perfect love means you never stop crystallizing.”

   “Correct. I delight in you still.”

   “How is this your worst impulse?” You hate your voice sometimes. ‘Worst’ sounds so accusatory, it makes you scowl. Elio only sways, his shoulders shifting to and fro. He’s heard it all before. He knows you too, your obfuscations.

   His hands are in yours, your arms held in front of you as you read the words to yourself. _ROME. Trip. Hope._ It might be the heat in your head, or the heat of him, but the feeling overwhelms entirely.

   “Will you come to Rome with me? Actually? Not metaphorically?”

   “What?”

   He shakes his head. “I mean, come with me. My worst impulse is asking without thinking what it could mean if you won’t.”

   You say nothing.

   “You… you… don’t have to. Answer. Now. Just. Yeah. Think about it.”

   What would you write on him? One. Leopardi and his blush. Two. Your sunglasses. How he'd always remember and hand them to you. Three. The monument. Four. That cramped little hallway, his foot on your lap. The last sentence alone would take up more than his arm.

   “What’s so funny?” he asks, his mouth curling upwards slowly.

   “You.”

 

* * *

 

   In the corridor, you let him walk ahead of you because you like watching him move. He stretches out his arms, fingers spread and dragging on each wall, making the space around him his partner in movement. At the end of the hallway, he spins tightly and smiles, lazy and inviting. His head tips back at your approach. Between the shine of his eyes, tongue, you don’t know where to look. Once you’re close, he chases your lips, mouth open, eyes closed and you tease the contact for a moment before burying your face in his neck, kissing the moles there. As if they were instructions: kiss here, now here. Don’t forget here.

   “You always do that,” he sighs, and how someone can manage to pout while sounding pleased is one of those mysteries you hope never to solve.

   “Do you not like it?”

   He grabs the top of your head; forever his trophy. “You know what I like.”

   What does he like? That’s right—you.

   You ask him, nicely, to lift up his parka, sweater and shirt sleeves so you can look at the watch you put there—your grandfather’s watch. The gimlet-eyed old man was a charismatic son of a bitch, could make a friend or a deal with anyone he met. His death was your first-ever loss.

   The Bulova watch looks right on Elio, the way everything of yours does. You slowly unzip his ski parka and free one arm only. Your hand is tighter on his wrist than necessary but it feels good to squeeze and hear him gasp. Pulling up his sweater arm further, you carefully fold that shirt sleeve up and up to lick a line to the inside of his elbow. He giggles and gives, and then you’re kissing again, gliding your bottom lip to his. The slow, pleasing curve of it from one corner to the other.

   “Come on,” you press your forehead to his, both smiling, both panting. “Show me the bedrooms again so we can kiss in every single one.”

 

* * *

 

   Each room, while mostly bare, has a color, a mood. Blue-gray. Light-green. Brown. The first one in the back has a Shaker bedside table and you open the drawer to look inside. It’s _Night_ by Elie Wiesel, slim and well-worn.

   “A little light reading before bedtime?”

   He shrugs his parka off, scratching his cheek. You take the hand that scratches, kiss his pale wrist, wetly kiss the raised veins there and return it to him. Elio looks down where your fingers were, your tongue, brings it up to his mouth and talks behind his arm. Only his eyes are visible; the words muffled.

   “My friend Ali stayed here for a while. She was reading it.”

   “The cellist from your trio?”

   “Yes,” he nods, eyes widening and almost immediately narrowing; from surprise to understanding in seconds.

   There’s no reason to pretend that you haven’t followed his press. Your interest is avid. The most recent article, in _New York Magazine_ titled ‘Sex, Drugs and Sonatas’ features a photo of the Chauchat Trio posing against a black background in high-fashion formal-wear. The violinist is tall, fit, sandy-haired with tight, intense features that sit in the middle of his otherwise-bland face. His lips, thin to begin with, press into a firm near-circle, small and withholding. Even his posture screams control and the fear of losing it. The cellist, tiny with pretty, round cheeks, has long black hair slung over her shoulder. She has a beatific close-mouthed expression, serene and trustworthy, and yet, there is something challenging and mischievous about it, too. She appears to be laughing even in seriousness. Finally, their pianist, sitting between them, curly-haired and doe-eyed, legs stretched out in front of him, fingers spread on his knees as if he’s about to play chords, head tilted back. A glistening pink-red tongue peeks out from the corner of a half-smile. He is all beauty and promise; a promise that cannot be kept, but is nevertheless a gift.

   All of them are pleasing to look at, and their photogenic appearance no doubt attracts an audience not usually sold on classical. But, to your admittedly biased eye, of the three, Elio is the most magnetic, the most sensual. Even if you’d never met him, had never kissed him in the grass, you would want to look at him. You would dream of those hands. Wonder why his lips are so red. Or what thoughts inspired that tiny check mark of a grin. You would look up his name and remember it.

   He removes your parka. “There.”

   “Thank you.”

   You kiss, you kiss him swift and sure, with open eyes. He reaches past you and closes the drawer slowly, with the tips of his fingers. Aside from the book, there are no signs this room had been lived in at all.

   “Is it true, what the articles say?” They hint at a love triangle, rehab and estrangement; their latest and lauded release, was, in all likelihood, their final album. “That the Chauchat Trio is the Fleetwood Mac of the classical music world?”

   Elio balls his hands up into fists, then opens them wide, fingers stretching out; the effect is not unlike a silent horror movie scream. He shakes them back to stillness and with a lopsided smile answers, “Probably.”

   “Really?”

   He sits down on a straight-backed wooden chair, supporting his chin on the top of the rail.

   “How so?”

   “I.” Elio inhales, then looks at you, steady, cheeks coloring as his chin juts forward. “I was sleeping with both of them. Not… not at the same time. I mean, yes. At the same time. But not together, not simultaneously.” He stops, seemingly to contemplate that scenario. You probably shouldn’t laugh.

   “It didn’t end well.” He coughs.

   “I guessed that.”

   The chair tilts forward slightly off the ground. “Did you?”

   You push his chair back. “It can’t be that bad.”

   His smile is brief, a lightning strike across his face. “You think I’m terrible.”

   “No. I don’t.” You consider and there is no lie there. You don’t believe anything about him is terrible, so his mistakes can’t be more than errors. Simple human errors of judgment, to be regretted and corrected. And he regrets it, you can read as much on his face.

   “Your violinist, though. He looks like a dick.”

   “Billy. He is a dick. I can’t stand him.”

   You laugh first, he joins you. He stops eventually, biting his lip.

   “So why did you sleep with him?”

   Elio mulls it over, and whether it's because the overhead bulb is casting a too-sharp light or because he’s gotten paler from exhaustion, his freckles seem more prominent. It gives him the appearance of a teenager again.

   “You don’t have to tell me.”

   He looks up, sharply. “No, it’s okay.” Elio pauses, inhales. “I thought that if I fucked him, he might become more bearable.”

   “And did he?”

   He strokes the side of his face with his fingertips as he thinks. “At first. But then, not really. He’s good in bed and that… sufficed. Somewhat.” Elio raises his shoulders in a half-hearted shrug.

   You hum as if you concur, even though you don’t know enough about the situation to agree or disagree and he watches you. Carefully gauging your reaction. His gaze is intense and you vividly recall how it always, always made you feel so very alive to pretend you couldn’t feel it.

   “He had a cocaine problem. He’s doing better now.” It sounds rehearsed, like a sound bite, and the words don’t match the look in his eyes. He seems much more interested in your response than in anything he’s saying.

   “Hmm. Blow certainly makes no one nicer or more interesting.”

   “Yes.” Elio raises his eyebrows and shakes his head, then coughs. His mouth stays open and he breathes through it. “I think I’m getting sick.”

   “And the cellist?”

   “Ali. She’s in love with Billy. Was. I don’t even know anymore. It’s unrequited. Or rather, the feelings aren’t returned in the way she wants. Anyway.” He waves his hand through the air.

   Whenever he seems overwhelmed by something, Elio’s shoulders tense and tighten forward into a slouch. You knew there would be others, so many others after you, you begrudge him nothing and hold no jealousy. But you wished him contentedness above everything, and that doesn’t seem to have hit. He’s still roiling away underneath and this used to be your worry: that you could never give him the satisfaction he craved. Perhaps he’s just one of those people who has to exist in a state of discontentment, and that is what makes him so magnetic. He pulls people to him as he makes his way onward; a central star with a retinue of planets, moving through the cosmos, destination unknown.

   He shifts. “Despite everything, Ali and Billy are friends, whereas Billy and I never really were. They’ve known each other longer, though, playing together since they were fourteen, so they’re close in that way. The formative way that defies ordinary explanations.”

   You weren’t fourteen but yes, you’re familiar with the formative.

   “Did she know about him?” No clarification is offered, but he seems to understand your meaning and shakes his head.

   “I don’t think so. He doesn’t give a lot away.”

   “But you knew.”

   “No. I don’t make assumptions about people’s desires. I act.”

   That he does.

   Elio stands, twists, stretching his arms overhead. “Ali is funny. Shy at first, then warmer. She’s a beautiful, intuitive musician.” He smiles, pushing a stubborn curl out of his eyes. “Initially, we bonded over our mutual irritation with Billy’s coked-up bullshit. We made up all these inside jokes, like code. I enjoyed the complicity.”

   “Uh-huh.”

   “After our mini-tour in ‘87 she stayed here for a bit while we recorded the Ravel, and, we kind of fell into—”

   He motions towards the twin bed. You picture him in it, his long legs dangling off and laugh.

   “Okay. And…”

   “Billy found out about Ali and I towards the end of recording. It turns out he was more invested in our relationship than I thought. I mean, I didn’t even know we were in a relationship, but apparently, that’s how he saw it.”

   And why wouldn’t the young man be invested? You find you can’t laugh at this development. At the moment, you have all of Elio’s considerable attention and regard. There’s enough pity in you for this Billy, with his defiant-to-the-point-of-terrified stare, who thought he had it, but was deluding himself.

   Elio swallows, tapping his Adam's apple three times as if something is lodged there.

   “At the time I’d already met Lina anyway, though we weren’t serious yet. But we became serious, not long after.”

   “Elio Perlman, breaker of hearts.”

   His eyebrows knit upwards, apologetic and pained. “Ugh. It was awful. It continues to be awful. Neither of them talk to me anymore, save for our appearances and the odd rehearsal. There’s a contract for a few more shows and I don’t want to break it, but.” Elio seems to run out of words and the room falls quiet.

   There's a window facing the yard and its corners are already bracketed with accumulated snow. Outside, you can’t see past the wall at the end of the garden, that’s how thick the snowfall is. In the distance, there’s the yellow glow of two street lamps, dim in the white-out. The tree branches sway wildly.

   “Have you ever seen us play?”

   “I have not had that pleasure. I heard the last record. The Ravel. Moving. The slow section especially.”

   “The Passacaille.” He pauses. “Everyone loves that movement. That one was tough for me to figure out. It’s difficult to interpret emotion when you’re playing that low. It’s just rumble, almost. The melody is buried.”

   “So how did you crack it?”

   “By tempo. Inflection. The piano establishes the story.”

   “And what is the story of The Passacaille?”

   “Impending loss,” he replies, quickly, too quickly. “That was my interpretation. Ravel wrote it at the outbreak of World War I. He wanted to finish it prior to enlisting, which he was anxious to do.”

   You lock eyes with your reflection. It’s like looking at yourself ten years ago, hair a mess, casual dress. The only change is in your eyes.

   “Do you think differently of me?” he asks behind you.

   “Not at all.”

   You turn away from the window, Elio stands there with his hands in his pockets. His shoulder is raised high enough to touch his cheek; he appears to rest it there for a moment.

   “Not at all?”

   “No.”

   You put your hands on his shoulders, smoothing them down, and he gives, the trusting pliancy he always seems to gift you.

   “No?”

   “I completely understand. Your cellist is lovely and he’s—”

   Elio raises his eyebrows; his anticipation of your response is adorable. He cares what you think. You care that he cares. All this caring, tying you both up.

   “—Attractive. In a pinch-faced sort of way.”

   You imitate the violinist’s scowling underbite and Elio guffaws, a bray-snort of a sound that would be hideous coming from anyone else. On him it works somehow, though, even when spit flies out of his mouth and he hurriedly brushes the back of his hand to his face, eyes darting to check whether you saw. You reach out and wipe away the errant saliva with your thumb.

   “I’m serious, he’s intriguing and has something. A quality.” You put the thumb in your mouth, suck on it. “He does seem like a real asshole, though.”

   He watches your mouth with a frown, his own hanging open.

   “But I get it, he’s got a good body. I’m sure he’s got a beautiful cock, too.”

   Hilariously, Elio’s eyes snap to yours and his face goes through a three-act Ibsen play. Confusion, suspicion, and a little jealousy. You step into his space and carefully untuck his shirt from his pants.

   “Not really my type, though.”

   “What is your type?”

   “Is this you fishing?”

   He doesn’t ask if he can remove the short-sleeved t-shirt he put on top of your long-sleeved one, he just does so. Rolls it up carefully and presses his mouth to yours as the shirt goes over your eyes, right at the moment you’re left blind.

   “The men you’ve slept with? What were they like?” His questions tickle the hinge of your jaw, your neck, your collarbone. He bites there softly.

   You answer immediately, without thinking. “Dark hair. Slender. Long.”

   It could be worse. You could have said more, though this is already too much. You could have said nothing at all; taken a page from his book and shown the truth all over your face. You pull the top t-shirt off the rest of the way, slide a hand through your hair. He stands close again, his feet in-between yours. You’ll be trapped here with his questions forever. Outside the snow keeps falling. It’s got to be at least two feet deep by now. The rising panic in your chest is paradoxically delicious and unsettling.

   His hands frame your face, gently, and he moves your gaze back to him. His curls are tangled up and drying into a wild frizziness and the eyebrows have resumed their default worry position. How did he describe them once? Oh yes, a slash on a typewriter staring at its mirror reflection. / \\. Always the clever boy.

   He presses your body to his, and the weight and warmth of him soothes.

   “It’s okay.”

   It isn’t, not really. You want to clarify that you could never handle more than three Elio-like details in a lover at once. To match all the traits would mean getting much too close to the real thing. Adding his voice, that unnervingly intimate gaze. Having it actually be him. The one thing you weren’t allowed.

   But there is no other Elio, of course. He is altogether singular.

   You take inventory. His smell, what you remember from that summer: sage soap, Mafalda’s laundry detergent. The sugary-sour tang of his sweat. Delectable. You loved to inhale deeply between the hinge of his leg and groin. Or stick your face in his armpit, lap at the dark hair there until his laughter gave way to quiet, then tiny hitches of breath as he jerked himself off. His long, aristocratic nose. Lips, full at the bottom and curling with expressiveness on top; two stories happening at once. Eyes, mostly-green (this was something you used to say to him: other colors, yes—but _mostly green_ ) with a slim ring of brown flaring around the pupil, bits of gray on the edges. How they always look a little sad no matter how hard you make him laugh. Jaw, sharp. Freckles. Everywhere. Scars. Birthmarks. Long fingers. Long toes. Long legs. Long torso. Slim, hairless thighs. The skin there cool and smooth. The way his mouth always hung open a little, and you had to stop yourself from putting yourself in there, in every possible way.

   Sleeping with men that reminded you of Elio was like a slot machine at a fixed casino, you could get one or two of the slots from a pick-up, but never all three. So you settled for whichever matched detail you could find, let that guide you to climax. The fact that you never won is the thing that made it possible to walk away, time and time again.

   “Hey.” He sounds far away but is right in front of you. “I’m not upset about Chauchat because of the sex. Sex is sex. I don’t regret that. It’s not about morality. Neither of them are ma—” Elio stops, covering his mouth with his hand. “Lives weren't ruined or anything. It’s, it’s—“

   “The unexpected emotional fall-out of your choice. Feeling stupid that you didn’t predict it. And had no exit plan. I get it. I do.”

   He drops his eyes from yours and slides a hand under your shirt, thumbing the hollows of your rib cage. His expression is hapless and a little lost, as if he’s not touching you at all but is miles and miles away instead. On a transatlantic call, maybe, waiting for someone to pick up the line, and you’re not in the picture.

   That’s Elio. A warm hand under your clothes, owning everything. Simultaneously distant and too close to forget.

   In your own distorted way, you were never faithless. You kept him alive in the details. You had to. He had to change so that your love could remain the same—something present and certain, forward-moving, not mired in memory or blurry with nostalgia. Those men who looked like him were older, as he would someday be older. He’d have a beard, whether he liked it or not. Crow’s feet from all that squinty-eyed smiling. You grab a hold of that dark hair and pull his head back, and kiss right into that ever-open mouth. Kiss and nibble down his neck as you keep pulling and his sigh grows; buzzes under your lips. You whisper in his ear. Smile. “Come on, show me the next room.”

   The next room has a queen bed and an illustration on the wall, an intricate drawing of a beaver. Lines, lines, lines and scratches. The animal has an intense, single-minded look, tiny whirlpool eyes and an open mouth. It’s unnerving and strange but also, oddly, appealing. You can’t stop staring, moving to feel its eyes move with you.

   “What’s the significance?”

   He twists his mouth and shakes his head, gesturing towards the frame with his right hand. “There’s another picture just behind it.”

   “Of what?”

   Elio looks up at the ceiling, blows out air from pursed lips like he’s about to confess to embezzlement. “It’s meant to be a… a double-sided portrait. Of the same subject.”

   “Oh really, of whom?” You lift the picture and attempt to unhook it from the wall. The wire on the back is tight on the hook, spooled and spooled around it.

   “Me.”

   He sighs, then smiles widely. The smile grows and grows into an open-mouthed, silent sort of laugh.

   “Seriously?”

   Then you laugh too. Laugh and laugh, peering at the beaver again and noticing what you had previously missed—the familiar down-turned shape of the eyes. “Well… the resemblance, while hilarious, is minimal. Is the other portrait you in human form?”

   “Yes, but it’s not meant to be seen, it’s deliberately hidden behind this one. You’d have to destroy the mounting to get to the other.”

   “That’s wonderful. Who did this?”

   “An ex,” he mumbles.

   “Oh,” you say teasingly, raising an eyebrow and reaching out to poke his shoulder. “An important one?”

   Elio considers you then shakes his head no, reaching out for your hand. “Yes and no, not important in a heartbreak way.”

   “Then in what way?”

   “In a way that made me see myself.”

   He brings your hand to his lips and kisses it; eyes closed, lashes fluttering.

   “Ber and I are still friends even though—” Elio groans, then grimaces. “I...”

   You take his arm, meet him halfway as he slumps forward onto your shoulder, whispering into your shirt. “I’m sorry.”

   “Stop apologizing.”

   “I should’ve been better.”

   “You’re—”

   “Stupid. It’s depressing how stupid I am.”

   You endeavor to hold him so close, all he’ll feel is affection. “It’s no more depressing than only having one-night stands with people who resemble the great Elio Perlman in some way.”

   His voice is muffled against your shirt. “You’re wrong. That’s _waaaay_ more depressing.”

   He gets what’s coming to him, you tickle and tickle until he turns around and bends forward, slumping in your arms like a rag doll, breathless and wheezing.

   Eventually, Elio straightens and both of you sway, looking at the portrait as if it were a window to greater understanding.

   “I fucked up a lot,” he says, hoarsely. “For a while. I wanted to be heartless. I was trying to be heartless.”

   “Why?”

   He lifts his face and rubs his cheek to yours. “Just to see. If I could.”

   “And could you?”

   “No, I’m no good at it.” He shakes his head and you stroke the front of his neck; he shivers. “It’s too complicated.”

   “It can be.”

   You kiss the top of his head, inhale the scent of the shampoo which you now smell of too. His hair is still damp. The beaver watches you both; you imagine its gaze has gone from avid to appraising.

   “You know, if you don’t like the picture, you don’t have to display it.”

   “I know. But I need reminders.”

   You don’t ask what reminder this thing could provide, but you feel as if you understand.

   “I’ll tell you tomorrow,” he turns, murmuring into your chest. You squeeze him harder.

   “Okay.”

   Elio sags a little, his body molding to yours. You lean in to kiss his cheek softly, the small scar there from, what did he call it?

   “How do you say chicken pox again in French?”

   “ _La Varicelle_.”

   “Right. And Italian?”

   “ _La Varicella_.” He yawns. “You’re going to learn everything in three languages?”

   “Maybe.” You take a hold of his face, his sweetheart face, all tenderness and give, and kiss it all over. The small scar again, the smattering of freckles on the bridge of his nose, the larger birthmarks near his jaw. You will catalog it relentlessly, never tiring. His mouth falls open with a smile. You tease over his upper lip, his tongue darts out to touch yours.

   You say to his mouth, the tiny spot of stubble, the two pinpoint freckles on his upper lip, “How do you say ‘a reminder’?”

   “ _Un ricordo_.” His voice husky on the short ending ‘o’. “No. Wait. _Un promemoria_.”

   “ _Un promemoria_. How lovely. And in French?”

   He inhales, looks up at the ceiling. “I don’t know. I. I can’t. I can’t remember.”

   “It’ll come to you. I’ll remind you.”

   Your hand slides easily under his shirt and sweater, feeling the slide of skin there, the two smooth dimples of his lower back.

   One eye opens, then the other. “Can you take off my sweater now? It’s hot.”

   You remove it and throw it behind yourself on the bed.

   “You’re making such a mess,” he sighs, looping his thumbs into your sweatpant waistband and pulling you closer.

   “I could make an even bigger mess.” You pull him too, grabbing the fabric of his shirt.

   “Could you?” It sounds less like a question and more like a request.

   “One more bedroom, right?” you ask, leaning back from his kiss.

   “Yes. Upstairs.”

   “Let’s go.”

   “ _Nooooooo_ ,” he whines, stretching his arm in the doorway. “I’m so tired. Let’s go back to bed.”

   “Come on.” You duck down and motion for him to jump on your back.

   “No, not on the stairs. I’ll hurt you.”

   “Come on, I can do it. It’s all about weight distribution.”

   Elio shakes his head. “No.”

   “Fine. Wait here.” You run upstairs, leaving him to protest feebly.

   The final bedroom is another twin room, with a single bed, unmade. It appears to be used more for storage than anything else. Bins, photo books, records, scores, hardcover are lined up against the wall in stacks. A rolled carpet sits in a corner near a metronome and folded music stand. On the windowsill, an empty ashtray holds an unlit stick of incense. A small table has a red record player on it, Dvořák’s _New World Symphony_ ready to play. You make to open the corner closet and before you can, Elio bounds up from the stairs.

   “Don’t,” he says, his voice pitching higher in the rush. His outstretched hand grabs and closes at the air. You let go of the doorknob. Take a few steps back. He puts his arm down, smiles tersely.

   “Why? What’s in there?”

   Elio slinks closer, slowly, putting his hand on the door, then his whole body. Leans against it. Crosses his feet at the ankle. “Nothing.”

   “Right.”

   In the space of seconds, he’s gone from panicked to a ridiculously studied attempt at casual. You cannot close your mouth; it stays open in a delighted grin. You’ve missed him so very much.

   “It’s just stuff.” He scratches his cheek.

   “Stuff. Okay.”

   “Uh-huh.”

   You cross your arms, he crosses his. He nods, that tight close-mouthed grin on his face. You nod back.

   “Am I never to look in Bluebeard’s closet?”

   “Never?” Elio shakes his head, looking down at his feet. He balances his heel on the toe of the other, shakes that too. “No. Not never. Just not right this second. Maybe tomorrow.”

   “Okay.”

   “It’s clothes. Only clothes. Some shoes,” he shrugs.

   They’re probably not his clothes. It doesn’t matter if they are or aren’t. You need him just the same. But there’s no way to tell him this. He’s far away, stuck in worry. Self-created worry, that sometimes people can’t be talked out of because they have to sort it out themselves. Elio coughs again, into his elbow, and straightens. He blinks.

   “I let others stay here sometimes when I’m visiting. I like the company. It’s not always sexual. Usually, I just talk to people, find out what they’re about.”

   “So like dinner drudgery, but with sleepovers.”

   He laughs again; that long near-gasp. “I suppose, I suppose. I am my parent’s son.”

   “Do you want to know what I’m about?”

   Elio’s expression shifts easily from placid to hungry. Now it’s your turn to play at not understanding intention. As if that wasn’t your meaning, you were only making _chit-chat, chit-chat_ —his favorite mocking phrase for all the wasted days you spent talking around one another that summer.

   He rubs his chin. “Can I tell you something?”

   That’s a child’s question. “Anything.”

   “I knew that Billy wanted me because he used to stare at my wrists. Complain when I hadn’t buttoned up my shirt or said good morning.” He walks around in a tight circle, then stops. “It was exciting to know that he could be had. It fed something in me, some need. You used to do that.”

   You tilt your head.

   “Stare at my wrists,” he clarifies. “I used to think you were trying to read my watch.”

   If he were anyone else, speaking to anyone else, this would be an unexpected segue. Or perhaps, a diversion; clumsy and ill-considered. But you know him, understand he’s offering you honesty. 

   You laugh. Elio does have beautiful wrists. You noticed them that first day, when he grabbed your bags to carry them upstairs; the dangling fringe of his friendship bracelets. His watch. He never took them off. You remember fucking him, against the wall of your-his room, his hand next to his head, closed in a fist. His watch, those bracelets―stark against the white. The slap of your bodies; the memory of that sound.

   “So what happened with the cellist?”

   “What Ali and I had was different. No less enjoyable, but perhaps more intimate. We were friends; we could talk. It wasn’t just appetite.”

   His arm is relaxed and it’s easy to pull him closer. You bring the Bulova-less wrist to your mouth, maintaining eye contact as you bite down gently at the pulse point. He crinkles his nose.

   “I connected with both of them through our playing, still do. We understand one another. I suppose I want more from my romantic partners, a different connection. I didn’t think. Didn’t know. That they might feel differently.”

   You nod and look down at the floor.

   “Don’t do that,” Elio says, short and sharp.

   “Do what?” It comes out harsher than necessary and echoes in the room. A tell is a tell.

   “Think that this,” he gestures between the two of you. “Is the same.”

   “Empathy is not-” You stop, finding you don’t wish to clarify. “I don’t.”

   “Good. Because,” he sinks a little, bouncing on his knees. His eyebrows are worried but his smile is painfully, teeth-chatteringly wide. “I’m happy. Aren’t you?”

   There’s no need to answer because he knows. You can’t hide. Elio strokes your beard; a hand swipe down your cheek to your jaw. Lingering at your chin for a bit, then going back up on the other side. You lean in, so does he, putting his forehead on the side of your neck. His shoulders shake, then he guffaws.

   “What’s so funny?”

   Elio shakes his head. “When Billy found out, he called me half a fag.”

   “What?”

   He continues laughing, stepping out of your arms, hand flat on his stomach, pale against the dark gray wool. “Half a fag.”

   “No, I heard you, I’m just trying to understand what the fuck that means.”

   “I suppose it’s somewhat accurate.” Elio shrugs, raising both hands up in the air, palm up. “Part-time fag. Occasional, sometime fag.”

   “Situational.”

   “Situational fag. I like that.”

   You both laugh. It's a warming sound, despite the gravity.

   “So what does that make him, then? Fully Gay? Half a straight?”

   Elio leans one shoulder against the wall, staring out past the doorway, into the hall, his fingers resting on the glass doorknob of the closet. “I don’t think he thinks he’s either. I think he finds it all beneath him.”

   “Ah, one of those.”

   “Yes.” He grins. While Elio, too, resists labels, you know it’s because he finds it inaccurate, too restrictive, not because he finds it offensive. You love that he loves, that Samuel and Annella gave him that gift. Let him know he mattered enough to be honest about everything he desired.

   You scratch your chin. “What an ugly word.”

   “Which word?” He tilts his head, moving the hair out of his eyes with a practiced flourish. “Half?”

   Elio’s faux-casual provocation is insolently sexy as always. You slap him on the ass and he starts, knocking over a stack of books.

   “Fuck. _Ow_.” He rubs the spot, a look of pure affront on his face.

   You help him pick up the books, hardcovers and paperbacks, re-stacking them against the wall. “That didn’t hurt.”

   “It did. But,” he grins suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, as slippery as an errant schoolboy. “I don’t mind.”

   You shake your head, smiling, leaning to read a title. Only you don’t, the weight of his attention pulls you back.

   Elio squints appraisingly at you. “It is an ugly word. Fag. But it’s just a word. _Faaaaag_.” He draws out the a, his jaw dropping. “I’m going to say it until it means something else.”

   “Okay.”

   “Does that bother you?”

   It used to scare you, his boldness. “I don’t know. I don’t usually engage in these conversations.”

   “Do you find it unseemly?”

   “No.” You stick your hand in your pocket, ball it up.

   “Then what?”

   “I’m married to a woman and I have a child. So I stay silent on this particular topic and listen. Try to learn.”

   “So you see yourself as not having anything relevant to add to the conversation. Interesting. But...” he pauses. “You know yourself.”

   “Yes.”

   “So you choose silence. Does that work for you?” The word ‘work’ is delivered mockingly. You’re being mocked.

   “No, of course not. It infuriates me.”

   He doesn’t press for clarification, seemingly satisfied with your answer. “Me too.”

   The tension in the room evaporates as quickly as it arose. Elio’s mockery is a soft mockery—not easy, but not cruel. He cares for you, you care for him. He’ll lead you through the water when the current becomes too strong to manage. You’ll do the same. Even when the water is too deep, and it is too late to return.

   A box by your hip contains a child’s glockenspiel, opened to reveal glistening metal keys and two bright yellow mallets. You take one in hand and hit B, G, B, E flat, smiling at each loud, clear ring. You repeat the line.

   Elio hums along to the melody and stretches out one arm so his hand reaches the other side of the doorway, fingers tented. “Why did you never tell me you could play the piano? I meant to ask you before.”

   You turn back to the box so he doesn’t see your smile. The mallets fit neatly in the bright blue case. It closes with a click. Underneath it you can hear the faint rattle of a tambourine.

   “I took too much pleasure out of hearing you play,” you answer simply, with a shrug, embarrassed to be this honest when there’s nothing to be gained from it. “Why spoil it?”

   Elio comes closer; less shine, more purpose.

   “We could have played a duet. I could have taught you.”

   You did play a duet. He did teach you. This is said out loud, just barely.

   “Can I see your arms?” he asks, softly.

   You’d forgotten you were written on. You push up your sleeves and his handwriting is easier to read on your skin than on paper. It reminds you of something. As you look, he traces the letters with soft fingers, then brings them back to his mouth to as if to taste.

   “Have you ever heard of Curse Tablets?”

   Elio looks up brightly. Of course he has. “Yes. Like Tretia Maria. In the British Museum.”

   He continues, looking to the side; clearly chasing the memory there. “A lead board with a curse inscribed on it, nailed in the intended recipient’s house, with them completely unaware of the hex cast on them. What did it say? It made an impression on me. Oh yes. ‘I curse Tretia Maria and her life and mind and memory and liver...’ and,” he pauses to remember or think and laughs. “‘And lungs... her words, thoughts, and memory... may she be unable to speak what things are concealed.’” Elio stops abruptly.

   “A terrible curse.”

   “A terrible curse,” he repeats.

   “Not death or misfortune but the inability to speak one’s own thoughts.”

   His lashes blink and blink, there's a tremor in his shoulders. He's shivering. “Yes.”

   “What a memory you have, Elio.”

   “It’s almost a party trick at this point.” He swallows. “Curse tablets are called _Defixio_ , correct? To affix.”

   “I prefer the Ancient Greek _katadesmos_. To tie up or bind.”

   Elio touches his neck. “Do you think I’m cursed?”

   “No,” you laugh. “I think I’m bound.”

   He leans toward you and the wooden floor groans under his feet. Elio shifts back, then forward; seemingly to hear it again; head cocked at the sound and reaching for you; the ballast. You hold him firmly by the forearms.

   “Curse Tablets were used for love spells, too.” He speaks quickly, raising his eyebrows. “Do you think there were other well-wishing ones? Ones for small, benign hopes?”

   “May Tretia Maria’s garments never stain at mealtimes? May her dog never bark before noon?”

   His eyes disappear when he laughs. They look like piggy bank coin slots. “Yes.”

   “Sure, merchants sold them blank sometimes. Like lead postcards. You filled in the blanks with your wishes, for good or for ill.”

   Elio lets go of your arms. “I think I want one. For myself, for here. Something good.”

   “I’ll help you make one.”

   His eyes take on that shine that advents tears and, as if sensing your concern, he backs up, putting some distance between your bodies. He leans against the doorway, eyes never leaving yours. His stare slowly taking on heat.

   The wind picks up outside, like a long howl.

   “Oliver.”

   One stride and you're there; kissing him forcefully. He twists your shirt with grabbing fingers, tongue against yours and moan-laughs when you rub your knuckles down the front of his pants. Rub and keep rubbing until he’s at full hardness.

   His cock twitches against your thigh, so you slip your knee between his legs, take most of his weight as he slides himself up and down your body. Both of you gasp at the friction.

   “I could do this forever.”

   Who said it? Who cares. You are of one mind.

   “O-li-verrr.” His voice stretches, as does his back, he’s arching like a cat. He takes both your hands and rubs them down the length of his crotch, trembling at the contact. As if it were a surprise. As if he wasn’t the one orchestrating. “You’ve kissed me in every bedroom.”

   The rest is unspoken.

   He has ink on his hands from your arms. And you have not stopped touching one another for the past hour. Throughout all the conversational twists and turns, one or the other has continually kept close. You cup his balls and squeeze a little. He stomps his foot.

   “Come on,” you say when he finally stills.

   Music plays from the speakers downstairs and it’s almost ghostly; rising up from below, hazy. You stroke him over his corduroys with the left hand and hold his right, barely, fingers to fingers, swaying in tandem.

   The walls breathe with you, as does the world. Day will break outside these rooms in an hour or two. His house, his way of speaking, his quiet—you love it all. But that word—love—is no more a promise than it was six years ago, all but forgotten in the fever-dark. You want him to see you; want him to know. You never want to stop.

   Words are an inadequate substitution for touch. So you touch. And in touching, you speak. You tell him that you're sorry. That you hope it wasn’t like this for him when you parted. The way it was for you. You hid the after-effects of that summer better than anything in your life. Because to show a sliver of the impact of that absence would have been the same as saying that there was less of you now. Less to be had, less to be shared again. 

   Elio keeps walking and doesn't turn around. He leads you back downstairs to his room, his mattress, and turns off the light; the click of the switch, loud. Outside, the sky subtly changes hue. You are in the dark but not in the dark.

   You touch the buttons on his shirt the same way you watched him touch them when he spoke on the phone—lightly, around their circumference, with one finger. Then wiggle it in between the spaces to the skin there, soft and smooth. When you finally unfasten his shirt, you start from the bottom and stop right above his navel. The top two were already open. You press a kiss there, at his belly button, kiss up, skin and single piece of connecting fabric, past that, right to the hollow of his throat. You undo his pants as well; push the button through the hole and unzip. Then bring your hand up to his face and he doesn’t ask why, only eyes you as he licks your palm slowly. You lower your now-wet hand and pause, stilling. “May I?”

   “Please.”

   You slip your hand inside his boxers and circle his cock with your fingers. Working him slowly at the head, nice and teasing, until his breaths are a series of near-silent gasps, as ephemeral as skywriting, and he rests his forehead on your shoulder. You release him and pinch his hip, his face tilting upwards.

   “Bed.”

   Elio falls onto the mattress, his knees giving way first, sinks then sprawls out dramatically. He stretches, with a wiggly sort of smile that concludes with a laugh.

   Your positions are reversed from earlier this evening and you understand now why he looked so pleased, standing there taking you in. It’s an image that’s familiar and yet, completely erotic—two words you didn’t think could exist together. After all, the feeling of your hand on your skin is no thrill compared to another’s. He is both your hands, however, that known, and yet; you tremble at his smallest touch.

   His open corduroy pants, pulled down slightly over the lift of his prominent hip bones, the soft white skin of his belly, the mallards on your boxers that he’s still wearing—the ones that Florrie gave you that made you wince, but now you could thank her with a case of that cloying perfume she likes. For this visual. His pant-flaps, spread like the pages of a book. Dark lashes and an open mouth, a long lick of bottom lip. Those fingers, slim and pale, at his throat; eyes steady on yours. Waiting.

   You kneel and crawl over to him. Elio undresses you fast, with near-savage ferocity, as if you were a much-wanted gift and tearing the wrapping is expected.

   It’s not like earlier. It’s not slow.

   Pre-dawn blue tints a blue room bluer; his skin also appears blue, lips darker, hair wet at the temples. He’s quiet for some reason, or trying to be. Biting back his moans, hushing them to hums—choked and sweetly desperate. You kiss him, deep, and his body curls, half underneath you, shirt open but not entirely off, boxers and pants shoved down to his knees. His hands are on your ass, your bare thigh pushes forward between his legs, and your arm tight around the back of his neck, grounding you together in a close embrace. Tongue in his mouth, your fingers work below in concert, wet and slippery inside him. A full-throated moan escapes him when you rub the necessary spot, and you echo the sound. His pleasure; yours. One follows the other.

   He breathes out into your mouth; panting, licking, biting down on your bottom lip with small noises, and you can’t believe how hard you are. As if him blowing you earlier wasn’t enough, or him fucking you or him, anything; all the things he does and says that you belong to.

   When he moves his head to the side, to kiss you harder and also, spit then, into your waiting mouth—his saliva trickles down your throat; your muscles contract as you swallow, and it feels like he is giving himself to you, like a renewed promise. You return the oath, and you remember; this is how it was. How it is. How it will be. Whatever is inside him is yours, and vice versa. You take it all. _Αἰδώς_ is altogether absent. There is no shame when you’re with him. When you are him. And he is you.

   You kiss until he looks like he could melt; three fingers deep and his groans of _fuck, fuck, fuck_ covering up the sound of that breach. It still has the same switch-like effect in you, spurring pure, unrelenting focus. With every exacting press of your fingers, you rock yourself against him as well and you want to take him over until there’s nothing in his head and heart but you. You, you, you. You are the words on his face; the story written all over him, overwhelming and true. The arm that holds him tight, pushes him closer for you to kiss. Your hand clutching at his shirt, it’s bunched up in your fist. You pull back.

   Elio says it out loud. He says, “You.”

   At noon he’ll board a flight, or maybe not noon because of weather delays, but he will board. What, then? He has another life waiting. More than a month before he returns. Will he want to? His cries are reedy now, higher and so close, they feel like part of your skin. Is this enough? Do you want more? He nods. One more? My whole hand? My fist? He bites his lower lip to pale, murmurs yes. Are you sure? So you try. The whites of his eyes, wide. More lube. Spit. Too much of both, which is exactly what’s needed. He breathes hard, mouth slack, four fingers suddenly too much. Can’t fit your thumb. You ease back.

   Okay? Okay.

   Lean in and say, nuzzling his chin, “Only because it’s too much.”

   He nods. “Yes. Thank you.”

   You don’t want to hurt him. Back to two fingers. He exhales. Nods again. Better, easier. Good. And, as his feathery moans continue confirming—pleasurable. Elio is noisy. Beautifully noisy. He moans right into your mouth, eyes open on yours. Will you come back for more of this, Elio? More? More of us? Tell me. “Elio,” he rasps, frantic. The ‘l’ and the ‘o’ are wet and hot at the curve of your chin; the squelch of your fingers going in and out of him, still, fast and steady.

   You kiss the hollow of his neck and bite; his answering hiss turns into a long whine that you feel under your teeth. Moving on, you suck a patch of skin between his neck and shoulder, watch it bloom red. Another whine follows, quieter, as if he’s gagging on it. He’ll see the mark when he showers. Or when he moves his collar. You hear yourself tell him, in a voice that sounds more like his than yours, that you will do whatever he wants you to do to him always. Whatever he wants, and stop whenever he wants. Always. His nodding is reduced to shivers. When you remove your fingers and sit back to yank his pants off roughly, he’s trembling everywhere.

   The hair at his calves and shins is dark, but his thighs are bare and smooth as water-hewn stones. You rub your face on them knowing it will irritate his skin, you’ll leave him red there as well. If he wants proof of your presence, you will provide it. He’ll be on his flight, his hand curled on his lap, and remembering will bring him back to you, his thoughts pulled again to this. The burn on his face, between his legs, his belly, everywhere. You want that for him, to feel all the possible evidence.

   You lift his leg to lick the back of his knee, his thighs are muscular and you squeeze them to see what he’ll do. He’s silent but his eyes stay on yours in that way you like most, heavy and certain; and his cock—pink and lovely with a slight beckoning curve. You’ve dreamed of having him in your mouth again, as often as you’ve dreamed of him reading next to you. Ordinary desire; ordinary longing. Your tongue meanders down the river-like vein to his slit, tastes the warm salt-slick at the tip. The head has a redder hue, you spit on it and suck, pull away to watch the saliva stick and stretch between you in one long strand. Glance up, to repeat the visual, but this time, not breaking eye contact. He bites his lip and snakes his fingers down to his groin, middle and index tight together, to rub his balls, press there. You nose alongside his fingers. Down to suck them also, drawn and tight under your tongue, and watch his mouth drop wider, until you can see his back molars.

   Fingering him once more as you blow him, he continues to stare at you, eyes half-lidded and hazy, still biting his bottom lip and stroking your hair. Then pulling to say, _now. Now. Love_   _me now._

   Are we? Are we in the now?

   Once inside, he insists on riding you, shirt still on but open, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the bright pearly sheen of your watch on his wrist. Elio’s hips push up and forward in ceaseless motion, grunting with every slickened slide, eyes cast upwards. You stroke him with both hands, in time to his hip thrusts. Elio lifts himself further and fucks the head of your cock only, suspended above you, his open shirt bunched in his fists. Just these short, sharp jabs on the tip, moaning at each pass; then stopping, thighs trembling. Nonsensically, it reminds you of an ellipsis. And a dozen other things that hold and pause and still.

   You’ll. Oh. Elio. Oliver.

   A photograph. Several photographs. Of art. A series of slides on a rapid-fire carousel. He looks like a religious painting of a saint; the same heaven-directed eyes, the near-pain of ecstatic wonder. The pale expanse of skin, torso and thighs, the curves of his shoulder where his shirt has slipped down. The give of him. Your hand, so large at his belly, slides up to pinch and pull at his small, pebbled nipples. The mole on his chest. You press your thumb into it. He gasps, grabs the edges of his open shirt with fisted hands and pulls it against himself as he rocks, the material biting at his skin. You move your hand to stroke the larger birthmark on his thigh with your index finger, lower to circle his ankle, then sliding down the sole of his foot, where his toes wiggle; tactile details on a canvas.

   The noises your bodies make together are earthly and real; flesh and slick and suction. There’s no forgetting who you both are, how real this is, how true. You pull him down by the waist, far too roughly, so that finally, he’s seated full and flush, the imprint of your two-handed grip burning on his hips. He lifts up, you let him, and then do it again, yanking him down viciously, knowing the red will purple into a bruise. Elio cants back, caught between moans and laughter, there’s a beautiful, red flush to his chest. He puts his hand on top of your fingers at his hips and urges you to squeeze harder, closing his eyes when you do. Pushing up into him. Again. Again. Again. And. Each moan matches the other.

   He speaks. A joyous babble, like the words he’s written on your arms: hope and delight. Declarations and promises. Statements of intent. It never seems like he’s fully aware of his incantations. You know from earlier that he doesn’t even remember all of the things he says. It is a secret self, one you’d missed most of all. Not careful, not wise, reckless and beloved. But he looks at you when he speaks, he doesn’t close his eyes, his words are meant to land. You push your middle and index fingers into his mouth, to touch that language, and he sucks hard, humming around them.

   His body folds forward, hips still moving, his torso is all ribs and lungs like an animal that needs to run. He grabs at your chin with a v of thumb and index fingers to kiss you better, drop his head to yours until you can’t see for his eyes. And tongue. His salt, his sweet. He wants to devour you, as always. That open mouth moves all over your face, messy and ill-considered, more spit and teeth than tongue. You drink from him as he drinks from you. Deliberate and slow, eyes to eyes, and he laughs.

   Your arms wrap around him to shift your bodies up to near-sitting, he moans at the change, and forehead-to-forehead, you both spit into your cupped hands, synchronized, a mutual promise, continuing to kiss after, furious and sloppy while you slather his cock with the mix from your mouths. Sweat is running in your eyes, your cheeks, and he licks at it, moaning. You fall back and plant your feet down on the mattress and push your hips up. Hands grip his wrists, which in turn, clutch hard at your shoulders, and you stroke your thumbs on them both; the bare one and the one with your watch. There’s a passing thought then, pushing past the immediacy of the moment: you never thought you would have this again, and here you are having it. Keep this time, no matter what. Keep it.

   Elio-Oliver, Oliver-Elio, rolling him over onto his back, still inside him, scooting to get closer, a closer angle. On your knees and eager, you lift him so only his upper back and shoulders stay on the mattress as you snap into him. Even with the position reversed, he continues to roll his hips; relentless as fucking always. You change the angle, aim upwards, deeper, slowing slightly, and he groans a single, low _fuck_. His head lolls back, neck exposed, chest angled upwards, the clear lines of his ribs, the strain. The hollows between the bones that you touch.

   You spit down where you bodies connect. You don’t need it, the lube is doing its job, but you want an excuse to look and see your cock entering him. The white fleck of your saliva disappearing inside.

   Elio tells you to touch him again, voice rough and small, arms over his head, where he grasps himself by the forearm. It has to be you that touches him where he needs it most. You do, you match your strokes to the rough push and pull of your hips, and it’s not him making all this noise. It’s you. You.

   You are so loud.

   He’s close. Even if he hadn’t told you. You’d remember, you’d know.

   Your watch is on his wrist. You think, no, imagine, that it’s ticking, as if amplified, in your heart, in the tightening of your balls. His eyes get wider and wider, almost pained. Between your thrusts, his pushing back, the trembling of his thighs, your hand getting him off, this desperate, ecstatic noise of skin and wet—it is too much and he comes; lips pursed, neck straining. The fat blue pulse point there matches the pulse of his ejaculate. All over his panting stomach and chest. The come-spurts are thicker at the ends and the semen slides upwards on his belly with your continuing thrusts, which slow past the squeeze of his climax; all that delicious resistance, wringing you out. Oliver. Whoever he is. Him but better.

   There is long stretch of silence, where Elio’s breathing is so even, you are sure he’s asleep, and you take the opportunity to touch the freckles on his neck. You hadn’t forgotten them, but they are lovely to see again. There’s a smear of sweat at his chest. You pull out and lower your head to look more closely at the come pooling in his belly button, near-iridescent and rather beautiful. It drips warm from your thumb when you bring it to your lips and tongue to taste.

   He stirs, opening one eye. “I’m not asleep. Don’t fall asleep.”

   You stretch out next to him and drag your fingers through more of his ejaculate and bring it up to your mouth. This isn’t something you do, it’s not a kink. You’re barely thinking; he watches you lap at his come and says nothing at all, sliding his hand through what’s left and adding his fingers to yours with a quiet solemnity.

   Ever the caretaker, you make sure to lick everywhere. Down between his legs and underneath, past his taint, to his ass and your spill. He shuts his eyes and tightens his hands into fists, shivering and shaking as you lap the stickiness away, mouth falling open into a long, gasped _aaaaah_. “You’re going to kill me,” he breathes out. And keeps breathing.

   Once he’s cleaned up, he kisses you and opens his mouth gradually until you feel like he’s tricked you into being eaten. That he’s the tiger and you’re the villager and instead of terror, you only feel awe. Outside, there is no birdsong. They’ve all gone away, hiding from the storm.

   There’s a chattering sound in the room. It’s you, your teeth. How are they doing that when you’re the furthest thing from cold. In fact, you burn.

   “I’m sorry.” His voice sounds small and far away.

   “Why are you sorry?” You press your lips to his, close-mouthed and exact.

   “To mangle a phrase, my eyes were bigger than my asshole.”

   Elio yawns, mid-kiss; your answering laughter is a loud belly-full. He smiles, eyes closed.

   “You should get some sleep.”

   His eyes narrow and he bites the inside of his lip. “I don’t want to.”

   “You have to leave for the airport in a few hours. Think of how upset Dafna will be if you miss the plane.”

   “Fuck her,” he mumbles.

   “You don’t mean that.”

   “I don’t mean that.” Elio yawns again, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand.

   “She loves you, wants what’s best for you.”

   “I love her. And I...”

   He shakes himself, then grabs your arm and jostles you as well. “I’m not going to go to sleep. And neither are you. We’re going to stay up and talk about everything.”

   “Everything?”

   “Everything.” Elio coughs. “Did I play you my arrangement of Britten’s ‘Interlude’ from _Ceremony of Carols_?”

   “No. What is that?”

   “It was written for the harp and I’ve been,” he rubs his face on your chest slowly, then slower, then stills completely. Gently, you lift his face by the chin. His mouth is open and there are freckles, tawny freckles, so many freckles on the bridge of his nose. That delicately chipped and crossed front tooth―another detail that used to drive you to distraction. He has no idea, no idea, of what he did to you back then. Of the effort it took to not go to his room and watch him sleep, just like this.

   Elio slumps forward, then back, staying stubbornly awake, going slightly cross-eyed from the effort. You laugh a little, not out of meanness, but delight. His eyes widen and his mouth doesn’t close all the way. He focuses on your chin, then your eyes, and when he locks them there, his face softens.

   “It sounds like snow,” he whispers. “But I can’t get the running sound, the way it sounds when you run in it. I’ve tried, I’m trying to match it. It has to sound. Like. Snow.” Elio closes his eyes. “I want you to hear it. Do you want me to play it for you?”

   Yes. Always. “Yes. Tomorrow. Which is today. Later.”

   Elio giggles into your neck and the conclusion of the sound stretches out like taffy. “You smell so good. Why does my soap smell better on you? I want to be buried with it. All the soap…” He regards you, with some seriousness, eyelids half-closed, a pinpoint of green. “Like a pharaoh.”

   “A pharaoh. Goodness.” You picture him in the Cecil B. de Mille type get-up, blue and gold stripes and eyeliner. It suits. “Am I to be buried alive with you?”

   “Yeah.” At Elio’s readily emphatic nod, you laugh. “Of course. Like the great tomb of Djer.”

   Names are important. Wanting to name a thing is to know it, because knowing something is to love it. He named you by calling you his; you have been no one else’s since.

   He burrows. “And don’t forget the cat.”

   “What cat?”

   “The cat I’m going to get. It has to come too. We’ll all be mummies.”

   At that, his head tips back violently with a thin, wheezy snore. Elio starts, eyes opening again. “You can’t fall asleep. I need to talk to you, you.”

   “Okay.”

   His fingers trail down your arm. “I can’t believe you let me write all over you.” His laughter is delirious, open-ended and wide. You marvel at his tonsils, how they vibrate.

   He pushes himself up on his elbows and you help, stacking the pillows behind you both and pulling him into your arms, where he settles against your chest. And you want to laugh and quote something, anything, but you are nothing but emotion. Nothing but joy and the last time you felt like this, it was right after the baby was born and you were taking your sabbatical in Mexico. Ben lay on your lap, wiggling there, awake, his baby cheeks pulling upwards into a big grin, tongue sticking out. You called out for Barb and said _look, he’s smiling_. She gazed down, exhausted but as beautiful as a Rossetti painting, and said, “I’m pretty sure he’s pooping.” You made sure to laugh as softly as possible, even though you were about to burst with happiness, because you didn’t want to startle him. You changed his diaper, then let him sleep on you, his hand a tiny starfish at your chest.

   This is not to say Elio is a baby who needs care. He would bristle at the comparison, and it’s distasteful besides. It’s just the memory of feeling that’s the same; feeling so much more than you can contain inside yourself. The spillover is bound to disrupt everything you assumed would come next. Everything has changed; everything is changing. Life is change.

   Elio shifts, aligning himself more perfectly. When he speaks his voice sounds distant and deeper, cottoned with sleep. “Have you read _Flaubert’s Parrot_ by Julian Barnes? I’m not sure what to make of it.”

   “No. Tell me about it.” You stroke his hair.

   He smiles. “It’s about this Englishman on a quest to find the stuffed parrot Flaubert kept over his desk. He’s a doctor.”

   You turn to one another and his smile is unerringly pure. “ _Dottore_ ,” you both say, simultaneously and leaning down, you kiss his nose, his pox scar, that tooth.

   “We’ll go downtown. I’ll take you to hear music. ‘I see through to the totally clear end’,” Elio sing-songs and breaks into breathy laughter. “But yes, _Flaubert’s Parrot_. You have to tell me what you think. I’ll give you my copy.”

   His body melts against you, nearly on top now, heavy and lax. His arms go around your neck and he breathes deeply.

   “Don’t go.”

   “I won’t.” You rub the back of his neck.

   “Stay until I have to get on that plane. It’s not about the parrot at all, you see. Or trains. Train stations.”

   “Yes.”

   “You should read it.”

   You are crying and you don’t know why. You don’t understand how happiness can feel like an ache. You laugh also, quietly, so as not to startle him. Even though your laughter is shaking him.

   “Yes,” you whisper, kissing the crown of that dark hair, finally dry.

   “Elio, Elio, Elio. I love your laugh.”

   “Okay.” You are Elio now. Elio-Oliver, Oliver-Elio. I.

   His fingers grab at the hair on your chest; curling like claws. “Get on. Get. Walk me to the gate.”

   “I will.”

   “Kiss me in a bathroom stall.”

   “Yes.”

   “I.” His eyes open. “I... I...”

   “I?”

   His ear has a freckle on the lobe. It begs to be kissed. There are two tiny ones on his top lip. I will kiss every single freckle on his body. He has so many. In every bedroom, every room. Every country. Every airport, every airport bathroom stall. Walls in old cities, him clinging to me with parted lips.

   “If you want. You can. I.”

   “I, what, Elio?”

   His jaw hangs slack and his tongue glistens in his mouth. I kiss the corner of his lips and he doesn’t stir.

   This time he’s the one on the train and I’m the one on the platform.

 

* * *

 

   The sky gradually burns a deeper blue. Elio is warm, his heat seeps into my skin; or is it my heat, his skin? I kiss his forehead as if that will answer the question.

   He does three quick inhales and one shaky exhale; the telltale combination that marks his entry into deepest sleep. I disentangle myself, and cover him gently with the soft blue blanket. I steal a pair of plain white boxers from his dresser, but stick to the same short-sleeved t-shirt and sweatpants I was wearing before. I can’t seem to think past that. I am just hands and legs. The mind sleeps.

   My wedding ring, long dry, rests on the alcove in the hallway; I’d half-expected it to have vanished. I put it back on absentmindedly and return to the bedroom with the double portrait. The beaver eyes me and I, him.

   “I’m not done with you.” It doesn’t respond. The animal’s confrontational expression is a match for what I’m feeling. Discomfited and loose; not myself; punchy. I should be dead on my feet, but I feel like running. I want to be outside with the cold deep in my sinuses, branching down into my lungs. Witness the morning change into deeper morning; understand that I have also changed.

   My throat is killing me. I take off the ring and put it in the pocket of Elio’s sweatpants.

   The kitchen is cold, the floor underneath my feet, freezing. Pieces of open newspaper are everywhere. I clean them up. The kitchen clock reads 5:43 AM, and the world outside the floor-to-ceiling windows is a pristine white. Judging by the buried handle of a garden implement, the snow is probably two feet deep which means office hours will be canceled, and I am free.

   Elio’s refrigerator contains more than I thought. I’d expected a single jar of mustard and an almond chocolate bar, maybe some of his beloved Nutella, but there’s enough in here for heavy brunch. And bagels, there are bagels. This is probably his cousin’s doing. I start the coffee and yawn, do some simple hamstring stretches, breathing into the give.

   The early morning news is nothing but a ticker tape of school closings in the tri-state area. Roads should be fine at home, Connecticut taxes at work. I stand at the TV cabinet and the green light on the VCR blinks, catching my eye; automatically, I hit eject. A blank VHS tape, well-worn and half-played, pops out slowly; it’s labeled _Vision Quest_ in Elio’s hand. Hobbes said ‘Curiosity is the lust of the mind’ and I am more lustful than most, so I pop it back in, hit play, fully expecting pornography. And it’s… a high school wrestling movie. This is somehow the least surprising thing that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours.

   Standing by the screen, I watch about ten or so minutes with a hand over my mouth; a dazed smile shifting beneath my fingers, before I turn the news back on, and settle on the sofa. Its sideways length fits me perfectly. What the newscaster doesn’t say is confirmed by the ticker tape crawl: Public schools in NYC are closed and subways are closed. More schools, universities, then mine; also closed.

   I sip my coffee, which has cooled enough to not scald. I stretch, yawning. I am butter. I am taffy. Despite the burning in my head, I have never felt better, in less need. I whistle. I can’t remember the last time I whistled.

   My body feels tender. I look at my hand and it doesn’t tremble so much as vibrate.

   There is no me to me. The me that is left is still upstairs, watching him sleep. Still busy thinking about when I can kiss him again. And him, me.

   Where have I heard that?

   Yawning, I put a pot of water on the stove, continuing to whistle softly to myself, and carefully place an egg inside once the rapid boil begins. Eight minutes pass and I count each—it’s soothing, almost like meditation—before removing the egg with a large wooden spoon, placing it in a waiting cup. (Yes, there are egg cups, of course Elio has egg cups, about a dozen of them.) I tap the shell lightly, at the pointy tip and around the circumference before carefully removing the cracked top like a submarine hatch. A thing of beauty, truly. Not a single lost fragment.

   I’ve practiced over the years.

   The hot yolk coats my tongue and I can almost taste it, even though my throat feels like gravel. When I put my forehead down on the cool of the kitchen table, I want to stay there for as long as I can but I know I can’t. Once I’m done wallowing in this feeling of impending sickness, I go to wash the dishes, and while looking for more soap, accidentally discover a dishwasher behind some cabinetry. There is every indication Elio has no idea it exists. I load and start it; the thing rumbles to life smoothly, possibly for the first time.

   I need pliers and set about opening all the drawers in the kitchen. I feel compelled to leave all them ajar, so the room looks like it’s exploded. But Elio might get frightened, not understand the staging, and think it was a burglary in progress. That won’t do. I find the tool eventually, close everything, then head upstairs.

   Taking the frame down from the wall takes some doing―enough movement of my wrists to know I’ll be feeling it for days―but eventually, I succeed at undoing the coiled wire, and return to the kitchen with the double portrait under my arm. The back parchment, which is brown like a paper lunch bag, has a message in thick black pencil cursive around its border. What little French I have, I put to use. It reads: _peut être ouverte par n’importe qui sauf par toi-même_ or rather, ‘to be opened by anyone except you.’ And then smaller: ‘they’ll know’, also in French.

   My laughter echoes in the kitchen and devolves into coughs.

   The box cutter is easier to find; it’s in a drawer with a flashlight, candles, and batteries. Player cards and golf pencils are bunched together with a rubber band. I know that I shouldn’t cut through without asking, but my head is burning and the portrait instructions say this fine, that I was meant to pry. I slide the blade in carefully, so carefully, and despite the persistent scratch of my throat, I want a cigarette. My hand shakes, but I’m so close and there. There.

   I stare at the hidden portrait. Long enough to finish another cup of coffee.

   There’s a pen in the kitchen. I click it, the point juts out. Click again; in. The blue ink is smeared at the tiny tip. I made a promise. I know just what to say. The Ashbery book is in the laundry room. I’ll leave it downstairs for him to find too, just in case.

   The early morning news hums in the background. I swap the placement of the portraits and secure the back again. Turn off the television. Walk past that beautiful piano, up the stairs to hang the new portrait in its old place. Hallway-walk and hover at the doorway of Elio’s bedroom where he’s still curled up on his side, hair damp with perspiration. His lips are pink and open. I don’t want to think, if I think, I’ll run, so I get back into bed and mold around his shape. He shifts, settling against me, and I want him again. I could never stop.

   My arms are full of words. I want to leave answers on the nape of his neck. At least one. One word, one answer. 

   We have changed. We are not the same men and yet, this hasn’t changed. Will never change. I can see years ahead.

   “‘I told myself: Wait,’” I whisper to his skin, to the blank page there. That dreadful cologne scent from earlier is faint, but not awful like before. It’s mellowed into something new, almost pleasant. Elio doesn’t stir.

   Am I ready? Ready to be seen? Again and again with no hiding place, the silence stretching out like weeks and weeks of summer. Slow and hot, then fast; almost over. I’m sweating, head like fire, he’s just as hot. I close my eyes, lean in to breathe the long line of his neck and forget.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Cheshirecatstrut and Thatoldbroad for beta reading this chapter. Any remaining errors/insane choices are mine.
> 
> A big thank you to the PB Comment Crew for continuing to comment on this weird little musical experiment.

**Author's Note:**

> This story will have four parts.
> 
> There are [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/user/ab9fc23einfyw2njezvth4dao/playlist/1ZktmiSDArEJKvSvPvrQqY) and [YouTube ](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWfM4lhzgKQX6OGe6r9VBWQgbjprXPPog) playlists for this story that I'll be adding music to with each chapter.


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